Preamble

The House met a half-past Two o'clock

PRAYERS

[Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair]

PRIVATE BUSINESS

CROMARTY PETROLEUM ORDER CONFIRMATION BILL

(By Order)

Order for Second Reading read.

To be read a Second time upon Thursday next.

Oral Answers to Questions — AGRICULTURE, FISHERIES AND FOOD

Glasshouse Produce

Mr. Michael Marshall: asked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what percentage of glasshouse produce is currently sold from the resources of the United Kingdom.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (Mr. Gavin Strang): I should like to explain that my right hon. Friend's absence is due to his being unwell. He has had to cancel his engagements for today, tomorrow and the weekend.
The value of glasshouse output in the United Kingdom is approximately equal to the value of imports of comparable produce, although with imports it is not always possible to tell whether they were grown under glass or in the open.

Mr. Marshall: May I say that from the Opposition side of the House we send our best wishes to his right hon. Friend?
Is the Minister aware that we are extremely concerned about the general implications of the import situation, par-

ticularly as it affects tomatoes? What is being done within the EEC to achieve a common line, particularly on imports from COMECON countries, such as Romania and Bulgaria?

Mr. Strang: I am sure that my right hon. Friend will be grateful for the hon. Gentleman's expression of sympathy. He will acknowledge that in practice the reference price system provides us with protection. A great deal of discussion has taken place on Dutch imports. The hon. Member will take some satisfaction from knowing that tomato imports are down sharply.

Mr. Watt: What steps will the Minister take to ensure that Scottish tomato growers have a future? Will the Minister see whether he can give some kind of fuel subsidy to those growers, so that at least they are on a par with their Dutch counterparts?

Mr. Strang: The hon. Gentleman is under the misapprehension that the Dutch and other member States are paying an oil subsidy. The Community's guidelines on oil subsidies ended last month. The good weather in Scotland will help to boost the prospects of the industry, because of the demand for lettuce and tomatoes.

Mr. Blaker: When can we expect the Government to produce a long-term policy for the glasshouse sector?

Mr. Strang: The long-term policy for the glasshouse sector has been clearly enunciated. We see a continuing need for this sector of the industry and we are investing in it through capital grants and through the advisory and research services.

Horticulture Industry

Mr. Watkinson: asked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if he remains satisfied with the competitive position of the horticulture industry.

Mr. Strang: Yes, Sir.

Mr. Watkinson: Is my hon. Friend aware that the horticulture industry is facing increasing problems because of domestically homegrown produce? Is he prepared to take steps to ensure that the horticulture industry is given adequate supplies of water at this time? Is he


aware that the land settlement in my constituency faces growing problems with water? Will he ensure that the industry is protected during the drought period?

Mr. Strang: I know of my hon. Friend's deep interests in these matters. I agree that it is imperative that we should see that basic, vital industries such as horticulture are protected. We shall look at the example my hon. Friend has given about his constituency.

Mr. Blaker: asked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what recent discussions he has had about horticulture with the Agriculture Ministers of the EEC.

Mr. Strang: Horticultural crops of direct interest to British growers have not been discussed recently in the Council of Ministers.

Mr. Blaker: A few minutes ago the Minister said that the Dutch glasshouse growers were no longer receiving a subsidy on fuel oil. Is he aware that the anxiety of British growers is somewhat wider, in that they should be able to compete on fair and equal terms in regard to fuel prices generally with Dutch and other growers in the Community? Is he now asserting that that situation exists? If so, will he set out the relevant figures in the Official Report?

Mr. Strang: The devaluation of sterling has given enormous protection to our industry against Dutch exports. Imports of tomatoes from Holland this year are down 45 per cent. to date.

Mr. Costain: Is the Minister aware that all that horticulture expects of him is fair competition from Europe? Will he give an assurance that he will see that that happens?

Mr. Strang: I absolutely agree. The least that our industry has a right to expect is fair competition. But we begin to get into difficult areas if we start to talk about taxation arrangements, labour costs and all the other elements which go into the cost of producing tomatoes and other horticultural crops.

Mr. Welsh: When will the hon. Gentleman be able to comment on the findings of the Strutt Committee and on the part that horticulture can play in future export plans?

Mr. Strang: The hon. Gentleman raised important points. Prospects for agricultural exports are good, and it is important that the Government should do everything they can to facilitate an expansion of those exports. I cannot tell the hon. Gentleman offhand what proportion of the increase we should like to see coming from horticulture, but there is a rôle to be played by that industry.

Grain Harvest

Mr. Litterick: asked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what are his Department's estimates of the size of this year's EEC grain harvest; and if he expects this to be followed by a rise or fall in the price of grain for animal feed and human consumption.

The Minister of State for Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (Mr. E. S. Bishop): My Department does not make estimates of size of the harvests in the EEC. The drought in France, in particular, has caused uncertainty about the size of this year's harvest, but the Commission is not as yet in a position to make a precise forecast. It is not possible, therefore, to make a firm estimate at this stage of the possible effect on prices in the coming season.

Mr. Litterick: Will my hon. Friend assure the House that if there is a shortfall in the European harvest this year there will be an appropriate adjustment of the levy on grain, so that a European shortfall will not lead to further increases in grain and, therefore, bread prices to the housewife?

Mr. Bishop: We shall take that into account. If there were a shortfall in the Community one would look at the prospects of grain from other places. I understand that the prospects in Canada and the Soviet Union are better this year.

Mr. Powell: Would not the consequences of climatic variation be much better dealt with by market forces and the freedom of importation than by the attempts made within the absurd straitjacket of the common agricultural policy?

Mr. Bishop: I do not accept the right hon. Gentleman's claim about the straitjacket. It is the security of supplies that is important. Whether there is a drought or not, supplies are likely to be available


to us from outside the Community, if not from inside.

Mr. George Rodgers: Does my hon. Friend agree that the Commissioner's report for 1975 reveals that all food prices in the EEC are substantially higher, apart from one item, than those in the world market? Does he not agree that attempts to renegotiate the CAP from within have proved a failure, and should we not consider ways of negotiating our way out of that situation?

Mr. Bishop: It is difficult for anyone to say that EEC prices are necessarily higher than those in other places. Many other factors have to be taken into account. My hon. Friend will be aware of the help coming in the form of butter subsidies, and of the sugar position last year, and so on. Regarding FEOGA, the contribution that we are paying is less than the amount that we receive. It is difficult to take an overall view of prices.

Butter

Mr. Moate: asked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what is the present level of United Kingdom butter production.

Mr. Bishop: The quantity of butter produced in the United Kingdom in the period January to May 1976 is estimated at 51,500 metric tons, compared with 21,800 metric tons produced in the same period in 1975.

Mr. Moate: Is the Minister aware that last year the British farmer supplied only 9 per cent. of United Kingdom butter requirements and that the rest of the EEC countries supplied 62 per cent.? What steps is he taking to remedy that imbalance and ensure that Britain does not remain the dumping ground for EEC surpluses?

Mr. Bishop: The hon. Gentleman will be aware of my right hon. Friend's views on surpluses and the representations he has made in Brussels. United Kingdom butter production was low last year, at 48,000 tonnes. It is expected to double to about 100,000 tonnes this year, leaving a requirement for imports of about 300,000 tonnes, compared with 387,000 tonnes last year. This is an important contribution to import-saving.

Mr. Raphael Tuck: Four weeks ago my right hon. Friend the Minister told me that there was no butter mountain in Britain. Is my hon. Friend aware that a week previously The Times had reported that there was a butter mountain in Britain of 1,000 tons and that it has increased since? What will he do about it?

Mr. Bishop: My hon. Friend should get the matter into perspective. The intervention stocks of butter in the United Kingdom stood at 3,250 tonnes at the end of June. Butter was being sold into intervention in the United Kingdom because of the high level of imports from the EEC before the transitional step in March. We do not share my hon. Friend's fears.

Mr. Buchan: Has my hon. Friend seen the draft proposals of Mr. Lardinois, reported this morning? Mr. Lardinois suggests that we deal with milk and milk products by imposing a levy on their production and a levy on imported protein and even the competitive margarine oil. Is not that a crazy way to run a food policy for Britain?

Mr. Bishop: I should not like to comment at this stage. Although there is a surplus of dairy products and milk in the Community, we in this country want to make sure that our production is in keeping with the White Paper "Food from Our Own Resources".

Mr. Jopling: Will the Minister give us an undertaking that if the Commissioner's proposal to put a levy on milk producers is carried into effect the levy will be offset by a consequent devaluation of the green pound, so that it does not fall upon British producers?

Mr. Bishop: I can give the hon. Gentleman no such undertaking. Whatever changes are proposed within the Community, we must look after the interests of our own producers and consumers. A change in the green pound can affect food prices across the board. We must take that into account when any such moves are proposed.

Milk Marketing Board

Mr. Corbett: asked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food whether he has any plans to change the powers and duties of the Milk Marketing Board.

Mr. Bishop: I would refer my hon. Friend to the reply given to the hon. Member for Cardigan (Mr. Howells) on 5th May.—[Vol. 910, c. 397–98.]

Mr. Corbett: Will my hon. Friend confirm that other people—namely, the Common Market—have intent in that direction? Will he give an undertaking of the Government's total commitment to retain a statutory milk marketing scheme for all parts of the United Kingdom, and confirm that at the end of the argument the Government will, if need be, use their much-vaunted veto to stop the dismantling of the milk marketing scheme?

Mr. Bishop: I shall bear my hon. Friend's views in mind. There is a great deal of pride in the way in which our Milk Marketing Board and the other boards carry out their functions. Membership of the Community necessitates changes in marketing arrangements for a number of commodities. Our aim is to maintain the functions of the marketing boards, including the MMB, which are essential to the orderly marketing of the products concerned.

Mr. Michael Latham: Is the Minister aware that the answer we wanted him to give was "No, Sir"?

Mr. Watt: Is the Minister aware that our milk marketing boards have had a record second to none, stretching back over 44 successful years? Will he impress on his EEC partners that if they could do as good a selling job as the milk marketing hoards of Britain have done there would be no butter or skimmed milk mountains in Europe today?

Mr. Bishop: There is an element of truth in what the hon. Gentleman says. But I wonder what would happen to those boards in the event of the hon. Member's kind of devolution.

Mr. MacFarquhar: Does my hon. Friend accept that even those of us on the Labour Benches who are commonly referred to as Euro-fanatics do not believe that everything in the common agricultural policy is right, and that we too throw our weight behind the determination which I hope exists in my hon. Friend's breast, concealed though that determination may be, to preserve the

Milk Marketing Board and persuade our partners to adopt something similar?

Mr. Bishop: My right hon. Friend has given assurances on this matter. We believe that the maintenance of our market and of the pattern of distribution enables the milk boards to maintain a high average return to producers consistent with reasonable consumer prices. We shall bear these points in mind.

Pâté de Foie Gras

Mr. Frank Allaun: asked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if, in view of the cruelty involved in the system of self cramming of geese to provide pâté de foie gras, he will ban imports from France and other countries produced in this way.

Mr. Strang: I understand that some research has been done in France to investigate the function of the hypothalamus in controlling the appetite of the goose. So far as I know, this work has not resulted in the development of a production method for pâté de foie gras of the kind to which my hon. Friend refers. The question of a ban on imports of pâté produced by such methods does not, therefore, arise.

Mr. Allaun: Whilst I am sorry to deprive some diners of their pleasure, is it not a fact that gavage, the system used in France, means cramming with an electric machine which forces the food through the beak of the strapped goose, and that this is done not only in preparation for winter, when the goose is feeding up, but throughout the year? Why do we condone that and import from France pâté made by a system which we would not tolerate here?

Mr. Strang: My hon. Friend is right to say that the gavage method is used. It involves a tube being inserted in the goose's beak. We understand my hon. Friend's views. We have always believed that any cruelty to animals in this country is the responsibility of the British Government. We support my hon. Friend's objectives, but we believe that the best way to reduce cruelty in other countries is through international agreement.

Mr. Powell: Would such a ban as the hon. Member for Salford, East (Mr. Allaun) asks for be possible under the rules of the EEC?

Mr. Strang: If the right hon. Gentleman looks at the history of the EEC, he will find that it is amazing what is possible even within the framework of the Treaty of Rome.

Mr. Raphael Tuck: Does my hon. Friend agree that there is no justification for cruelty to animals in order to satiate the bellies of the rich?

Mr. Strang: I think that what my hon. Friend says is substantially true. Pâté de foie gras is not eaten in large quantities by a substantial section of the British population. I say quite seriously that the attention that hon. Members are drawing to this matter might lead some people to modify their eating habits.

Sir John Hall: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that I raised exactly the same question some years ago with the same result that has been obtained by the hon. Member for Salford, East (Mr. Allaun)? Is it not time that we took this matter a little more seriously? Although we have no responsibility for the treatment of animals in other countries, at least we can make our views very strongly felt by banning the import of pâté de foie gras to this country.

Mr. Strang: I take the hon. Gentleman's point. We must take all these matters seriously. There is a large body of opinion in this country—it is reflected in correspondence to hon. Members—which feels strongly about animal welfare However, we must also consider other matters. If we were to adopt a policy of banning imports on the ground of cruelty, such a ban might apply to certain forms of meat production.

Green Pound

Mr. Bulmer: asked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what is the present discrepancy between £ sterling and the green pound.

Mr. Strang: The gap between the two rates is 22·4 per cent., giving a calculated monetary compensatory amount of 20·9 per cent. for this week.

Mr. Bulmer: When will the Government start to explain to the public the consequences of this mismanagement of the pound in terms of rising food prices? How can the Government expect the British farmer to respond to their White Paper if he cannot compete on equal terms with his Continental competitor?

Mr. Strang: I am not quite sure what the hon. Gentleman is asking for. Is he complaining because there is an enormous subsidy on the import of food from the Community, which benefits the British consumer, or is he suggesting that we want to maintain food prices at a low level for the benefit of the consumer?

Mr. Corbett: Will my hon. Friend confirm that consumers welcome the disparity, in that it protects them from the more monstrous craziness of the application of the common agricultural policy? Will he take on board the fact that large sections of the industry do not want an immediate and dramatic revaluation of the green pound? Does he accept that that would mean only a slackening of demand for the things that are being produced?

Mr. Strang: I am sure that my hon. Friend was not intending to imply that the common agricultural policy has contributed to the recent fall in the market rate for sterling. I agree that in practice we have to be careful from the point of view of the consumer, who is obviously paramount in this matter, as well as from the point of view of industry. If we force up prices too high and too quickly, there will be a sharp effect on demand.

Mr. Jopling: For how much longer does the hon. Gentleman think that other countries in Europe, such as Germany, will be prepared to continue to pay out almost £30 million a month to subsidise food prices in this country?

Mr. Strang: The hon. Gentleman has raised a point, but let us remember that the subsidies are on exports from Community countries. Some countries are not too unhappy about that. This is a difficult area. We are talking about striking a balance between the consumer and the producer. Even if we were not in the Community, the direct implication of the fall in the value of the pound sterling—I am sure that this is recognised


by the hon. Gentleman—would be higher food prices.

Farmland (Rating)

Mr. Peter Morrison: asked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food whether he intends to endorse the recommendation of the Layfield Report that farmland be rated.

Mr. MacGregor: asked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food whether he intends to accept the recommendation of the Layfield Committee on the rating of agricultural land.

Mr. Boscawen: asked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what consideration his Department has given to the recommendation for the rating of farmland put forward in the Layfield Report.

Mr. Strang: As has already been explained in the reply given to the hon. Member for Howden (Sir P. Bryan) on 1st July, a conclusion on this recommendation in the Layfield Committee's Report will not be reached until after the end of the consultation period announced by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Environment.

Mr. Morrison: What would be the effect on the cost of food if agricultural land were to be rated?

Mr. Strang: It would obviously depend on the rate at which it was rated —[Interruption.] This is a serious point. The effect would depend on the level at which the rate was fixed per acre of agricultural land. However, the hon. Gentle-main raises a valid question. Obviously such rating would have implications regarding agricultural costs.

Mr. MacGregor: Will the hon. Gentleman confirm that the Layfield Committee based its conclusions entirely on rating grounds and principles and took no account of the effect on food prices, home agricultural production, or investment in farming? Are those matters not his responsibility, and should he not now make his position clear?

Mr. Strang: Obviously these are important matters, and are of concern to this Ministry. We are now entering into a period of consultation. All interested parties have been invited to put forward

their views. It would be quite wrong for this Ministry, or any other, to pre-empt this consultation process.

Mr. Fernyhough: Does my hon. Friend realise that farming land includes grouse moors? Is he aware that next month there will be advertisements offering a week's grouse shooting for £600? Why should land that is being used for profit in that manner be excluded from rating when every other industry and private person in the country pays rates?

Mr. Strang: My right hon. Friend has raised a fair point, to the extent that the actual rates paid by the estates are very small in relation to the sort of figures that he has quoted.

Mr. Boscawen: Would not the hon. Gentleman be doing his job better if he were to make an unequivocal statement here and now that productive land should not be rated? If he did so he would increase the confidence of farmers for the future. Will he do that now?

Mr. Strang: I have already explained the position. I hope that even Opposition Members will acknowledge that there is now great confidence in the agriculture industry. I am talking about the longterm prospects. Obviously the drought is a serious but temporary matter. The position of the milk-producing sector and other important sectors of the agriculture industry has not been better for a very long time.

Pig Production

Mr. Arnold: asked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what is the current EEC subsidy per ton on bacon imports to this country.

Mr. Shepherd: asked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what provisions he will make to save British pig producers and processors from the ill effects resulting from the present discrepancy between pound sterling and the green pound.

Mr. Hal Miller: asked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if he is satisfied with the state of the pig industry.

Mr. Bishop: The United Kingdom accession and monetary compensatory


amounts payable on bacon imports are currently, together, equivalent to £228·18 per tonne. Pig producers have enjoyed a substained period of firm prices and the national herd is expanding, but I recognise that the curing and processing industry is particularly concerned about the effects of these compensating payments. My right hon. Friend will be meeting representatives of the industry shortly to discuss the situation.

Mr. Arnold: Faced with MCA payments that give a substantial subsidy to Danish and Dutch competitors, will the Minister give an assurance that he will seek to devalue the green pound in the pig sector, so as to improve returns for British pig farmers?

Mr. Bishop: As I said in reply to an earlier question, the decision to change the value of the green pound is a delicate one. One has to take into account the interests of consumers, producers and processors. It is a matter that the Government keep constantly under review. In view of the importance of curbing inflation and the level of agricultural support that my right hon. Friend announced on 8th March, I do not believe that a change at this time is justified.

Mr. Shepherd: Does the hon. Gentleman accept that devaluation of the green pound for the pig sector would give relief? Is he aware that my right hon. Friend the Member for Cambridgeshire (Mr. Pym) and Mr. Lardinois have both asked for devaluation? Why does the hon. Gentleman insist on disadvantaging the home producing sector?

Mr. Bishop: I am sure that Mr. Lardinois and the right hon. Member for Cambridgeshire (Mr. Pym) are equally sensitive to the need for this country to deal with inflation. There is no alternative to the present policy of the Government, whereby we have to restrain prices as well as wages and incomes. I believe that my right hon. Friend has done a good job in keeping a balance between the interests of all those concerned.

Mr. Lee: If an attempt is made to force a revaluation of sterling, with the adverse effects mentioned by the Minister, may we be assured that he will use his veto?

Mr. Bishop: That is a matter we shall bear in mind, but in the circumstances, that would be extreme action to take. The Community has shown a great degree of sensitivity to the problems, and we are not anxious to make too many changes. We have, indeed, made four changes in the last two years.

Mr. Hal Miller: Does the Minister accept that, contrary to earlier assertions, there is no confidence in the pig industry at present because, apart from its difficulties over imported products, it is frustrated by having to pay a levy on imported proteins, while it can find no use for skimmed milk powder? What does he intend to do about the situation?

Mr. Bishop: I challenge the hon. Gentleman's assertion that there is no confidence in the pig industry. He may be aware of the warning given by the NFU a month or so ago to the effect that overproduction could be bad for all the interests concerned. One has to model supply in relation to demand and in terms of prices obtainable in the market.

Mr. Lipton: What is the import levy on bacon imports from non-EEC countries, such as Poland?

Mr. Bishop: That is a question of which I should like notice.

Mr. Jopling: Is the Minister aware that we are shocked at his complacency? Does he realise that at this moment the bacon industry is losing an enormous amount of money? Will he look again at the possibility of having a special devaluation of the green pound in the pig sector—otherwise, before long he will not have a bacon industry at all?

Mr. Bishop: In regard to the bacon industry, I have yet to hear rasher statements than those made by the hon. Gentleman. According to the census taken in April last, there was an increase in the United Kingdom pig breeding herd of 4 per cent. compared with April a year earlier. The hon. Gentleman will also be aware of the change in average prices. The warning of the NFU should be heeded. The hon. Gentleman will also be aware that it is not possible for a change in the green pound to be selective.

Fishing Limits

Mr. Bowden: asked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what assumptions he has made in determining the variable width of fishing zones exclusive to United Kingdom fishermen.

Mr. David James: asked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food where he intends that the zone exclusive to United Kingdom fishermen should be as little as 12 miles wide.

Mr. Bishop: The extent of our exclusive fishing zones is a matter for negotiation with our EEC partners. We are determined to obtain a solution that meets the needs of our fishing industry.

Mr. Bowden: Is the Minister aware that when he visited the inshore fishermen on the Sussex coast they felt that he understood their case, and indeed they took to him as an individual and were grateful for the time he gave to them? However, is he also aware that those same men now feel betrayed—and that this feeling applies to the inshore fishing fleet not only in Sussex but in every other part of the country? Its members feel that they are in a desperate situation, and want to know what action the Minister intends to take to help the inshore fishing fleet.

Mr. Bishop: I appreciate the compliments paid to me by the hon. Gentleman. I found the two dozen visits that I made to the fishing industry extremely helpful, and I am glad to hear that they were appreciated by the fishermen. I must emphasise that the interests of the inshore and deep sea fishermen are linked. The hon. Gentleman will be aware that consultations are now taking place with the industry.

Mr. James Johnson: Is the Minister aware that last evening the charming editor of the Icelandic newspaper Morgunbladid telephoned me asking about legislation being prepared in Whitehall on these limits. Will he give me an answer on that topic, since I could not answer such a question last night? Furthermore has he seen the map that I now have in my hand, published last week in the Scotsman? That map is alleged to be the basis of discussions concerning a 50, 35 or 12-mile limit off the coasts of the United Kingdom. Will he comment on that map?

Mr. Bishop: I would not like to answer as to the truth or otherwise of Press and media speculation. I am aware of the map published in the Scotsman. I also notice that in some newspapers there has been talk of a retreat. The fact is, as we have said, that we have been looking at key areas beyond the 12 miles limit and have found that many are within 35 and all are within 50 miles. That remains our position. What matters is not just the limits but the availability of the catch, species, and marketing prospects. At the end of the day we want to make sure that our industry has the kind of access that will enable it to be viable.

Mr. Donald Stewart: Is the Minister aware that the failure of the Tory Government in the original negotiations to secure a decent agreement, and the failure of the Labour Government even to put the topic of fishing on the agenda in the renegotiations, has meant a complete sell-out? If the limits suggested in the Scotsman have any bearing on the Govment's position, it will be regarded as the grossest betrayal and will be bitterly opposed in Scotland.

Mr. Bishop: I am well aware of the failure of the Conservative Government to negotiate a fishing policy to help us in the future. The fact remains that in the present situation other Community members may take the view that they can fish up to our shores. This is a difficult position to retrieve. The way in which the Government are now proceeding has general support and, indeed, is being received with toleration and cooperation in the Community. When the hon. Gentleman talks about failure of Labour policies he should remember that we have not by any means yet finished our negotiations.

Mr. Jopling: Will the Minister stop talking such humbug about the original negotiations on a common fishing policy having failed? If he persists, he must say why the Labour Government did not negotiate the subject when they first came into power.

Mr. Bishop: I am sure that the House appreciates that the Government conducted a wide range of negotiations and put the situation to the country in a referendum—[Interruption.] The fact remains that the country has accepted continued membership of the EEC. We are


now having to retrieve a situation left to us by the Conservative Government.

Drought

Mr. Hooley: asked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if he will make a statement on the effect of the current drought on estimated EEC production of maize, barley and wheat in 1976, and on the intervention stocks of beef.

Mr. Bishop: It is too soon to say what effect the drought will have on these commodities. However, the Council of Ministers recently decided as an exceptional measure to permit up to 10,000 tonnes of cow beef to be purchased into intervention in France before the end of July in view of the severe shortage of fodder in that country. Similar restricted measures have also been agreed in respect of Belgium, Germany, Luxembourg and the Netherlands.

Mr. Hooley: Does the Minister agree that the present situation demonstrates the absurdity of the policy envisaging a self-sufficiency of food for Western Europe, because we thereby become vulnerable to serious fluctuations in weather conditions, which cause danger to food supplies and water? Apparently, not content with creating a butter mountain, Mr. Lardinois is now proposing to put levies on vegetable oils, thus preventing access to margarine and creating a surplus in that commodity as well.

Mr. Bishop: I am aware of the hon. Gentleman's view that the Community is not particularly useful to us. However, drought is not a matter that is particularly associated with the Community. What matters is the security of our supplies. On that score, if drought affects our crops, the access we have to other countries will be of great assistance to us.

Mr. Charles Morrison: The Minister will be aware of the situation in regard to the price of wheat and barley. What estimate has he made of the effect of those prices on the cost of living, and the extent to which it is likely to affect the Government's anti-inflation policy?

Mr. Bishop: It is difficult at this stage to say what the yield will be within the Community and outside it. Those are factors that will have some bearing on prices generally.

Mr. Spearing: In his answer to my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Heeley (Mr. Hooley), the Minister implied that we may have to import food grains next year, should the drought continue. In that case, will there not be levies on those grains, and will not those grains be more expensive than they otherwise would have been? Does that not illustrate that the CAP is not suited to the consumers of this country?

Mr. Bishop: I think that my hon. Friend is under a misapprehension. The price depends on the availability of grains outside the Community. All forecasting on this matter is hypothetical at this stage.

British Nuclear Fuels Ltd. (Effluent)

Mr. Forman: asked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if he is satisfied with the radiation standards set by his Department with regard to effluent discharged by British Nuclear Fuels Ltd. into the Irish Sea a few miles off the the coast at Windscale.

Mr. Bishop: Yes, Sir. The authorisations, which are granted jointly by my right hon. Friends the Minister and the Secretary of State for the Environment, for the discharges from Windscale Conform fully to the recommendations of the International Commission for Radiological Protection which have been endorsed by the Medical Research Council.

Mr. Forman: Will the Minister assure the House that the standards set for this form of low-level nuclear waste are sufficiently strict to ensure that there is no threat to human health, either now or in the future? Will he tell the House why officials from the Fisheries Radiobiological Laboratory were not prepared to meet the team from the Granada Television World in Action Programme, who investigated this matter recently?

Mr. Bishop: I think that the producers of the Granada programme are well aware of the reasons for the laboratory's non-participation.
The current discharge levels are well within the current authorisations. The authorisations which govern the discharge of radioactive effluent into the sea are drawn up in the light of guidelines


issued by the International Radiological Protection Board. I am satisfied, having looked into this matter again in the last few days, that it should not give cause for concern.

Dr. John A. Cunningham: Will the Minister make it quite clear to the House that in the Granada film access was granted to Windscale to those making the film, but when the programme went out none of the views of British Nuclear Fuels played a part in the production? Notwithstanding the allegations by an American scientist about the dangers to the public, none of the work done by that scientist bears any resemblance to the work done at Windscale, or the position in Cumbria.

Mr. Bishop: Yes. The fact is that the programme did cause some concern, and I have looked very carefully at the position with our own scientists. I assure the House that we keep this matter continually under review.

Mr. Bowden: There is growing concern among environmentalists about the dumping of all types of radioactive materials into the sea. Is it not time for a complete review of the standards? Should the Government not look ahead to the next 100 or even 500 years, and not let the problem go until it is too late to solve it?

Mr. Bishop: I can reassure the hon. Member by saying that the White Paper on this matter, which was produced some time ago, is under review at the moment and may be updated. The matter is not left dormant; it is reviewed in the light of current events.

Food Policies

Mr. Nicholas Winterton: asked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what procedures are followed to ensure that food policies adopted by the Department of Prices and Consumer Protection are compatible with those of his own Department.

Mr. Strang: There is regular and close consultation between Ministers and officials from the two Departments on food and drink policy matters of mutual interest and concern.

Mr. Winterton: I thank the Minister for that reasonable reply. Is it not a fact

that the high rate of taxation prevailing in this country, the still fairly high rate of inflation, and price restraint place tremendous burdens on the food manufacturing industry? Is the Minister not aware that this situation does not allow the food industry to retain sufficient profits or make sufficient profits for the big investment necessary if it is to remain the most efficient food manufacturing industry in the world?

Mr. Strang: I am sure that the hon. Member will recognise that the food industry has been helped by the agreement with the TUC on combating inflation. I hope that we can count on the hon. Member's support.

Potato Marketing Board

Mr. Banks: asked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what representations he has recently received calling for the continuation of the Potato Marketing Board, as at present established.

Mr. Bishop: I am aware of general support for the continuation of the Potato Marketing Board from farmers and traders, together with a recognition that the present functions of the board may need considering in the light of any changes in our arrangements at the end of transition, and any which may result from the proposed EEC regime for potatoes.

Mr. Banks: Is the Minister aware that many farmers in my constituency are deeply concerned about this matter? Will he give an assurance that he will argue the case for the retention of the Potato Marketing Board without compromise?

Mr. Bishop: I have emphasised the value that we place on the present marketing arrangements. These are under review within the Community, and I have emphasised that we shall not be happy to see any changes that will be detrimental to the interests of the producers or the consumers.

TALYSARN

Mr. Wigley: asked the Prime Minister if he will pay an official visit to Talysarn.

The Prime Minister (Mr. James Callaghan): I have at present no plans to do so.

Mr. Wigley: Is the Prime Minister aware that if he did visit Talysarn and many other slate quarrying villages, he would be forcibly impressed by the suffering from silicosis and other lung diseases? The practical situation facing these people puts them in a special category, because the former quarrying companies have gone defunct and the workers cannot get justice in the courts of law. Would the Prime Minister look at this situation again, in the same way as he has looked at the position of coal miners, who have been helped considerably by the Government?

The Prime Minister: I know the villages concerned, and many years ago I lived in that area. I have great understanding of the problem. Silicosis is a grave disease. A great deal of research has been done on it in my former constituency of Penarth. In logic, there is very little reason why remedy should be limited to coal miners, as such, but I think we should await the report of the Pearson Committee and see whether it brings forward any proposal on the matter of physical disability. When it has reported, we can consider future action.

Mr. Cryer: Irrespective of the Pearson Committee report, there is an urgent need to look at the incidence of silicosis among foundry workers. Having opened the door to a proper scheme of compensation by the National Coal Board for miners suffering from pneumoconiosis, I believe that the scheme should be extended to cover people who work in foundries.

The Prime Minister: The same considerations apply to foundry workers as to slate quarry workers. It is my understanding that the Pearson Committee intends to review this matter, and I think that we should await the proposals that it will bring forward.

Mr. Charles Morrison: Although the Prime Minister may not be visiting Talysarn, will he take an early opportunity to announce, here or elsewhere, his proposed cuts in public expenditure? In that respect, is he aware that in spite of the huffing and puffing from members

of his Left wing, they will make the best of Lobby fodder?

The Prime Minister: At Talysarn there is a considerable programme of current derelict land clearance, to the tune of £320,000, which I hope will help the hon. Member for Caernarvon (Mr. Wigley) and his constituents. They have been discussing additional expenditure for this and other matters.

Mr. Skinner: To get back to the more serious aspect, as the Prime Minister knows, the latest news arriving from the Isle of Man miners' conference is on the question of the retiring age being lowered. One of the main causes of pneumoconiosis and associated diseases is the fact that miners have to work up to 50 years in appalling conditions. Does my right hon. Friend agree with the National Union of Mineworkers in what it said on this matter this morning, or does it conflict with the pay policy? Will he give this matter his attention?

The Prime Minister: The question of earlier retirement for coal miners should be considered very seriously, because of the special conditions under which they labour. To introduce such a scheme now probably would conflict with the existing pay policy, but that is no reason why we should not consider any proposals that the NUM puts forward, particularly if it regards this as a matter to which it attaches priority. However, I could not give any guarantees this afternoon about implementing such proposals.

HEADS OF GOVERNMENT (PUERTO RICO MEETING)

Mr. Forman: asked the Prime Minister if he will make a statement on the agenda of the Western economic summit meeting in Puerto Rico.

The Prime Minister: I refer the hon. Member to the statement I made to the House on 29th June.

Mr. Forman: Is it not a fact that when the right hon. Gentleman and his colleagues went to Puerto Rico for the summit they were given what amounted to a six months' stay of execution by their international counterparts? Is it not also a fact that, whatever may have been on the agenda of the Puerto Rico


meeting, the dominant factor on the Government's agenda must be the need to bring forward planned cuts in public expenditure for 1977–78, and to do so soon enough, so that when the Chancellor has to go back to the IMF at some time before November he has domestic policies of which our international creditors can approve?

The Prime Minister: The first part of the hon. Gentleman's question is not a fact. On the second part, I note the almost masochistic desire of the Opposition to be flogged into having less public expenditure, as though this were something utterly desirable, when, by all accounts, and judging from questions put to me this afternoon, it has been shown that additional public expenditure would meet very desirable social needs. If the Government have to regulate the amount of public expenditure, the hon. Gentleman should not take a delight in that; he should help us to work in order to get more public expenditure in due course.

Mr. David Steel: In his statement—[Interruption.]—the Prime Minister summed up the summit in the two words "co-operation" and "inter-dependence". Since we all recognise how dependent we are on others to give credit, will he give the House and British industry a clear target date by which he hopes we shall return to single-digit inflation?

The Prime Minister: I think that the House will allow me to congratulate the hon. Gentleman on his election yesterday to the leadership of his party. I assure him that there will be very few occasions when he will receive cheers from all parties in the House at the same time, so he had better make the most of it this afternoon. On behalf of all of us, I wish him at least an enjoyable tenure of office.
The original hope and intention of the Government was that we should be down to single-figure inflation by the end of this year. The depreciation of sterling and the increased price of raw materials and commodities, one of which is partially but not wholly consequential upon the other, means that this must be postponed a little. I am sure that hon. Members will be delighted to know that I expect to see the inflation rate going down again this month—I would have expected some

applause for that. My pause there was for applause. I expect to see the rate going steadily down. We shall, on present commitments—[Interruption.] It is too hot for me to shout. Hon. Gentleman opposite would do better to keep quiet. They may be pleased to know that we would certainly expect to reach a single-digit inflation rate during the course of the next year.

Mrs. Thatcher: As the Prime Minister now has a breathing space in which to take the necessary economic measures, is he aware that on the Opposition side we were pleased with what he said yesterday about the need for greater profits and a profitable private enterprise sector? Is he further aware, however, that within a few hours of his meeting the Secretary of State for Energy was advocating further measures of nationalisation? Will the Prime Minister therefore repudiate the right hon. Gentleman, in view of his own new-found commitment to the free enterprise sector, by dropping both the Secretary of State and the nationalisation measures now before the House?

The Prime Minister: I assure the right hon. Lady that none of this was discussed at Puerto Rico. If I were to meet my colleagues again I am sure that they would take the view that was taken by the CBI representatives yesterday, that the Government's policies, taken as a whole, offer the best opportunity for this country to escape from the economic thraldom in which it has been held. The fact that the CBI and the TUC together were willing to make this joint settlement should be welcomed on all sides of the House.
As for my right hon. Friend's speech, I regret that I have not had an opportunity of reading it. I am sure, however, that it was full of his usual good sense.

Mrs. Thatcher: I was asking the Prime Minister not so much what he said but what he proposed to do in support of what he said. Is he aware that we can only conclude that when he is with the CBI he is content to appear in capitalist clothes, but that when it comes to taking action in the House of Commons he is only too willing to be pushed into more Marxist measures?

The Prime Minister: The right hon. Lady does not seem yet to have understood that this was not a meeting with


the CBI; it was a meeting of the NEDC, and a joint conclusion was reached by all the parties there, which was why they all appeared at the Press conference—a pretty-well unprecedented move. As for my Marxist clothes, I am willing to fill in an application for membership of the Tribune Group, but I somehow think that it would not have me.

Mr. Heffer: They do not have to be Marxists.

Mr. Mike Thomas: Does my right hon. Friend accept that regardless of his Marxism, his neo-Marxism or his non-Marxism, he would have been greatly strengthened both in Puerto Rico and at his meeting with the NEDC yesterday had the Opposition Front Bench taken the view about pay policy which the right hon. Member for Sidcup (Mr. Heath) advocated so eloquently yesterday?

The Prime Minister: It would be foolish to neglect the good elements of Marxism, which have been absorbed into a great deal of political thinking and which, oddly enough, permeate all parties. Personally, I have not yet been utterly convinced by the doctrine as a whole. It is certainly true that some of my hon. Friends in the Tribune Group would qualify more as Left-wing Liberals than as Marxists.
My hon. Friend asked about the attitude of the Opposition. I think that a great deal of our industry has long since ceased to expect the Opposition to say anything that is either relevant or helpful to the cause of Britain's industrial recovery.

CBI AND TUC

Mr. Adley: asked the Prime Minister when he last met the TUC and the CBI.

Mr. Hannam: asked the Prime Minister when he last met the CBI and the TUC.

Mr. Lawson: asked the Prime Minister when he last met the TUC and the CBI.

The Prime Minister: I refer the hon. Members to the reply that I gave to the hon. Member for Blackpool, South (Mr. Blaker) on 27th May.

Mr. Adley: If some members of the TUC and some Labour Members below the Gangway should revolt against the forthcoming cuts in public expenditure, will the Prime Minister unequivocally welcome support from the Opposition side of the House, from wherever it may come, and will he ensure that the decision of Parliament, whatever it may be, is upheld by the Government?

The Prime Minister: I lead the Labour Party and the Labour Government. It will be upon Labour votes that I shall depend in any policies that I place before this House.

Mr. Madden: Will my right hon. Friend confirm rumours circulating this afternoon that a subsidiary of Lonrho is to be advanced considerable funds to acquire Brentford Nylons? If that is so, how can my right hon. Friend reconcile it with the recent publication of a report dealing with highly disturbing matters concerning that company, and the fact that this afternoon it is indicating bumper profits?

The Prime Minister: I cannot answer that question without notice. I have not heard those rumours.

Mr. Lawson: Since the Prime Minister is so fond of praising the TUC for the sacrifice it has allegedly made in accepting stage 2 of the Government's incomes policy, will he tell us precisely what sacrifice the unionised 45 per cent. of the national work force is making that the non-unionised 55 per cent. is not making? Is it not the case that the trade unions have deliberately framed the policy so that, by and large, their members will suffer relatively less and the rest of the work force, including middle management, will suffer relatively more?

The Prime Minister: I do not think that any of that is true, and the hon. Gentleman is not helping by putting about that kind of allegation. The TUC has made a pay agreement voluntarily among its members, which is unexampled and has received far more praise from foreign countries—who are more objective—than from the Opposition Benches. Because of that agreement, we are on the way to single-figure inflation and our industry and exports have better chances than they have had for many years.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE

Mr. Speaker: I call Mrs. Thatcher, for the business question.

Mrs. Thatcher: May I ask the Leader of the House to state the business for next week?

The Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons (Mr. Michael Foot): The business for next week will be as follows:
MONDAY 12TH JULY—Private Members' motions until 7 o'clock.
Afterwards, Third Reading of the Development Land Tax Bill and remaining stages of the Iron and Steel (Amendment) Bill.
Proceedings on the following Consolidation Measures: Fatal Accidents Bill [Lords], Legitimacy Bill [Lords], Lotteries and Amusements Bill [Lords], Restrictive Practices Court Bill [Lords], Restrictive Trade Practices Bill [Lords], Police Pensions Bill [Lords], and Adoption Bill [Lords].
TUESDAY 13TH JULY, WEDNESDAY 14TH JULY and THURSDAY 15TH JULY—Progress on the remaining stages of the Finance Bill.
FRIDAY 16TH JULY—Private Members' Bills.
MONDAY 19TH JULY—Completion of remaining stages of the Finance Bill, until about 7 o'clock.
Afterwards, motions on Child Benefits Regulations, financial assistance to Kearney and Trecker Marwin Ltd., and the Hill Livestock (Compensatory Allowances) Regulations.

Mrs. Thatcher: The Leader of the House will be aware that the amended version of the Finance Bill was not available in the Vote Office until this morning. During the Committee stage an unusually large number of undertakings were given by the Government, and we cannot possibly see their amendments until tomorrow. Very large parts of the Bill are substantially to be rewritten and there are new clauses to be inserted following the pay agreement. Could the right hon. Gentleman therefore delay the start of the Bill until a little later next week? At present we have very little time

to put down amendments, especially considering that we cannot see until tomorrow what amendments the Government have tabled.

Mr. Foot: Following representations yesterday by the right hon. Member for Yeovil (Mr. Peyton) on this matter, I looked at the question carefully and we shall do everything we can to overcome the inconvenience to all hon. Members which might arise from our timetable. The Government's new clauses should be available to the House today. Some have already been published, as have some Government amendments. I gather that the traditional situation has been that the first day of the Finance Bill Report stage has been devoted to consideration of new clauses, so I hope that that situation will be all right for the House.
I have looked at previous arrangements, and we want to do everything we can to overcome any inconvenience, but this inconvenience to the House is not a novelty. It arose last year and in some previous years. I can give the figures if the House wants them. All Governments are faced with this kind of difficulty. We shall take the same steps as we took last year and which other Governments have taken to assist hon. Members and to supply them with the amendments and new clauses. Most of the Government's amendments are in response to requests made in Committee. There is nothing novel in what we are proposing. I cannot accept the suggestion that we should delay the proceedings, but we shall do everything in our power to assist the House in dealing with the Bill.

Several Hon. Members: Several Hon. Membersrose—

Mr. Speaker: Order. Before I call any Back Benchers, I should remind the House that there has been an abuse of business questions lately. I hope that questions will be directly related to the business next week and will not be used to ride favourite hobby horses.

Mr. Faulds: What are the Government's intentions about the Public Lending Right Bill [Lords] in view of the malarky the other night and the Government's generally muddled handling of this measure?

Mr. Foot: I do not accept that there was muddled handling by the Government. There was opposition to the Bill


from various quarters in the House, but it is a Government Bill and we shall look for another opportunity to get it through.

Mr. Beith: In the light of the amount of business which is not on the agenda for next week, can the Leader of the House help us by indicating whether he might want the House to sit well into August or to come back in September, bearing in mind that hon. Members with children on school holidays will not fit in readily with such a proposal? In view of the amount of Government business which has been held back or which has capsized at surprisingly early hours of the night, could the right hon. Gentleman justify such an extreme course?

Mr. Foot: I fully understand that hon. Members on all sides wish to have as early as possible an indication of the times that we shall be asking the House to sit. I shall seek to give that information as soon as possible and I shall take into consideration the points put by the hon. Member. However, I do not accept that any Government legislation has been capsized. It is still floating towards port.

Sir David Renton: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the fact that too short an interval has frequently been allowed in the past between the Committee and Report stages of the Finance Bill and other legislation is no reason to repeat that error for the rest of time? Is he aware that we look to him to see that the situation is improved in accordance with the recommendations made by a committee last year?

Mr. Foot: I quite agree with the right hon. and learned Gentleman that we want to see the situation improved as much as possible. What is happening this year is an improvement on what has happened in some previous years. I cannot delay the Finance Bill because of these difficulties, but we shall do everything in our power to overcome inconvenience for hon. Members.

Mr. Ioan Evans: Following the publication of the Lonrho Report, may we have a Government statement next week, in view of its grave implications about Rhodesian sanctions and the many other disturbing matters it has raised?

Mr. Foot: I shall discuss with my right hon. Friends whether a statement

should be made on those aspects of the matter, but I cannot make any certain prophecy now.

Mrs. Chalker: As the report on young homelessness has been with six Government Departments for several weeks but cannot be included in next week's business, will the Leader of the House take early notice of the need for a debate on this issue before the end of the Session?

Mr. Foot: A debate before the end of the Session is a possibility. A debate before the Recess is more difficult. I certainly recognise the importance of the report.

Mr. George Cunningham: Is my right hon. Friend proposing that on Monday week the House should address itself to the Child Benefits Regulations only after 10 o'clock? Does he think that one and a half hours, or something like that, after 10 o'clock would be adequate?

Mr. Foot: We are proposing that the debate should start after 7 o'clock. There will be time for discussion.

Mr. Michael Marshall: On Monday, it is proposed that we should have the Third Reading of the Development Land Tax Bill followed by the Report stage and Third Reading of the Iron and Steel (Amendment) Bill, which will bring a £4,000 million borrowing agreement before the House. Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that this latter Bill is very important and that seven new clauses were tabled yesterday? Will he reconsider the order of business so that this Bill is not rushed through late at night?

Mr. Foot: I do not agree that the Bill will be rushed through that late at night. We have to proceed with this measure and I cannot propose an alteration to the timetable. I think there will be sufficient time for the House to give proper attention to this important Bill.

Mr. Cryer: Is my right hon. Friend aware of the strong feeling on this side, expressed by my hon. Friend the Member for Aberdare (Mr. Evans), that the Lonrho Report should be discussed, as it is a revelation of the unacceptable face of capitalism—against which we are fighting? Does he agree that the slush funds, the country houses and the tax avoidance should be discussed on the Floor of the House so that the nation can criticise


them and the trade union movement can see the sort of thing which has been going on in company board rooms for far too long? Could not such a debate be coupled with a discussion on the whole question of company legislation and how it needs tightening?

Mr. Foot: There is certainly a whole series of extremely important matters of public policy that arise as a result of the report, but I cannot promise an early debate. That does not mean that I do not think that the subjects are important.

Mr. Nott: With regard to the Finance Bill, is the Leader of the House aware that the Government have effectively withdrawn their proposals for taxing benefits in kind on motor cars, and that this is of major importance to the British motor industry? Government amendments on this subject cannot possibly appear on the Notice Paper until Monday, and the motor industry will certainly not have time to consider them before we debate the matter in the House. Can that be right? Is the right hon. Gentleman not concerned about the motor industry, which wants to see these amendments?

Mr. Foot: We shall do our very best to ensure that there is as much time as possible for looking at the amendments. However, the hon. Gentleman is among those who should recognise that this is not a new situation.

Mrs. Hayman: Reverting to the Child Benefits Regulations, as there is a working party looking at the whole issue might it not be sensible to delay consideration of the Regulations by this House until after the urgent report of that working party?

Mr. Foot: I think that this concerns part of the Regulations which it would be quite appropriate for the House to proceed to discuss. The working party that is looking at the whole question raises larger and longer-term issues which would no doubt have to be discussed at a later stage.

Mr. Tebbit: In order that we may have a better idea how the business next week will run, will the Lord President say whether he will be continuing the practice of the Government packing up and going

home at about 1 a.m. when they cannot persuade their Back Benchers to stay here and support them, or shall we be able to go a little later in order to help him to expedite his business through the House?

Mr. Foot: The objective is not necessarily to stay late. It is to get the necessary examination of the necessary business through. The two requirements go together. We shall, I trust, do both next week.

Mr. Spearing: Does the Leader of the House recall that a week ago he announced that tomorrow we would be discussing both direct elections to the European Parliament and the EEC documents on public service contracts? Despite the fact that there are 59 motions on the remaining Orders of the Day, the motions for tomorrow have not yet been put down. What will they be? Will the Leader of the House assure us that there will be two distinct motions and not an omnibus motion?

Mr. Foot: If my hon. Friend means an omnibus motion on direct elections, I should have thought that to be a fairly simple matter, whatever amendments may be put to it. I should have thought that that was a satisfactory way to proceed.

Mr. Graham Page: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that his statements about the Finance Bill are still very unsatisfactory? Is he aware that the Bill as now printed has 11 more clauses and 20 more pages, that in Committee on 97 occasions undertakings were given by the Government to consider matters, and that there were 37 occasions when they were to bring in amendments? Is not this an abuse of legislation and a denial of the right of Members on the Report stage of a Bill?

Mr. Foot: I reject the exaggerated language used by the right hon. Gentle-man. [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."] If that were true, it would apply to previous occasions—for example, in 1972, when there was the same interval that we have had now between the publication of an amended spring Bill and a Report stage, and that happened to be a Bill considerably longer than the present Bill, 30 per cent, larger, and there was a large number of amendments in that case. Many of


the amendments on this occasion are amendments put down to be helpful and concessions—so to describe them—made to the Opposition. I should have thought that that made the matter easier rather than harder. In any case, however, as I am sure the right hon. Gentleman will recall, the House has had difficulties in this respect previously. It is not something created by the present Government. As others have done previously, we shall do our best to assist the House in overcoming those difficulties.

Mr. Peyton: Does the Leader of the House realise that there was absolutely nothing exaggerated in the language used by my right hon. Friend the Member for Crosby (Mr. Page)? I hope very much that the Leader of the House will have a look at the facts asserted by my right hon. Friend, as I am sure that he will find them correct. The only point that we found welcome in what the Leader of the House said just now was the reference to a "concession" to be made by the Government. He used that word. I hope that it will be borne out in practice. Does he not realise that, whatever may have been done in the past, that is no excuse for making a bad habit of it. The present Government's creation of bad habits is one of the highest things in productivity known to man.

Mr. Foot: It is not a matter of the creation of bad habits. All I have said is that the present Government are not responsible for creating them. This Government, like previous Governments, have had pressure on their time in the Finance Bill. There have been similar difficulties previously. We are seeking to overcome them. That is why I said that the language was exaggerated. That does not mean that I do not accept that there are inconveniences for people inside and outside the House if the period is short. We shall take the same kind of measures as have been taken by previous Administrations to try to overcome the difficulties.

Mr. John Mendelson: In view of the statement made by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Employment at the end of the two-day debate last night—that he expects in the next few months an increase in the level of unemployment, particularly among school leavers, but that the Government propose

to take further measures to alleviate the position—will the Lord President give an assurance that before the Summer Recess the Secretary of State for Employment will make a detailed statement to the House so that we know what those measures are and so that we can debate them and report them to our constituents before we adjourn?

Mr. Foot: It is certainly the Government's desire that there should be a statement about the measures that we wish to take before we depart for the recess. A debate may be a different matter. These are matters which have figured prominently in the debates that we have had over the past two days and they could figure in further debates. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Employment indicated that in the debate. However, certainly the statement would be made to the House, and we would do our best to ensure that it was made before the recess.

Sir John Hall: While the Leader of the House may be quite correct in saying that there is nothing new in the short interval between the publication of an amended spring Finance Bill and the Report stage, there are, nevertheless, two quite new aspects in the present Bill. First, we shall be called upon to discuss new clauses which have not appeared before the House at all; secondly, the complexity and far-reaching nature of many of the new clauses and amendments are of such a character that we should have much more time than has been given to us before the debate starts. We should be quite within our rights in asking for five days. We are taking only three days. We might at least postpone the debate so that more time may be given for consideration of the amendments and to decide upon others that may need to be tabled.

Mr. Foot: As to the time allocated, we all thought and hoped that the Report stage and Third Reading could be taken within the three days. We have gone beyond that and now offered another half-day. Many of these topics would have been in order for discussion not merely in the general debate that we had yesterday but on the two Resolutions. I am not complaining because these matters were not pressed then, but it was not


the Government's fault that time was not provided. We provided more time.

Several Hon. Members: Several Hon. Membersrose—

Mr. Speaker: I shall call only two more hon. Members for questions on the business, because there is another statement to be made.

Mr. Skinner: Does my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House agree with me that it is not an abuse of the House for Back Benchers to exercise a right to raise questions about business arrangements, even though they may not have anything at all to do with next week's business? [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."] In view of that, will my right hon. Friend—

Mr. Speaker: Order. I am sorry that I may not have heard the hon. Gentleman correctly. Was he criticising the Chair? [HON. MEMBERS: "Yes."] Will the hon. Gentleman be kind enough to indicate whether he was criticising the Chair?

Mr. Skinner: Yes, Mr. Speaker. What I am attempting to draw from my right hon. Friend—[HON. MEMBERS: "With-draw!"]—who is well versed in this matter is whether he agrees with me that it is not an abuse of the House for Back-Benchers, at business question time, to raise matters which are not necessarily connected with next week's business, because it is one of the few opportunities that Back Benchers have of raising matters of this kind.

Mr. Speaker: Order. I am sorry to intervene in the hon. Gentleman's remarks, but that happens to be my responsibility. I have already indicated to the House that I intend to try to keep these questions related to the business for next week. There are plenty of other opportunities that hon. Members can take to raise such subjects.

Mr. Skinner: All I am saying, Mr. Speaker—

Mr. Speaker: Order. Does the hon. Gentleman wish to ask another question?

Mr. Skinner: Yes—

Mr. Speaker: Order. Not the question he raised previously?

Mr. Skinner: Not that one. Will my right hon. Friend, as Leader of the House, set up an inquiry into the mysterious collection of envelopes that finish up outside the Tory Whips' Office every day and disappear when night comes. Presumably they come from the Tory Central Office, but they bear Mr. Speaker's stamp—

Mr. Speaker: Order. That has nothing to do with the business for next week.

Mr. Lawson: Returning to the Finance Bill, is the Lord President aware that a major new Government clause concerning nationalisation compensation, which is of great importance to all companies in the aircraft and shipbuilding industries, has not yet been tabled? Therefore, would it not be wrong to start on Tuesday with new clauses? Is the right hon. Gentleman further aware that on the last occasion when there were substantial Government amendments to a Finance Bill—in 1975—we were given five days on Report? Do not we need five days on this occasion?

Mr. Foot: The hon. Gentleman is wrong in suggesting that there would be any departure from tradition in proceeding with the new clauses as we have suggested. The Government's new clauses and many of the Government's amendments are tabled. If there are further new clauses or amendments to be tabled, we shall make special arrangements to ensure that they are sent specially to hon. Members who wish to have them. That is the arrangement that has been made on previous occasions. I fully acknowledge that the Government must provide papers in good time, but the House should recognise that we have had this difficulty before and that we are seeking to overcome it by methods that have been adopted previously.

Sir G. Howe: The Leader of the House must appreciate that this method of handling financial legislation is doing much to bring the House and those handling its financial business into disrepute. Will the right hon. Gentleman undertake to put back the Finance Bill from Tuesday next week, because it will be literally impossible for us to have realistic and meaningful consultation with people outside the House about important amendments to clauses that have already been shown to be nonsensical on first consideration in Committee upstairs?

Mr. Foot: The right hon. and learned Gentleman's use of "impossible" is misplaced. A similar difficulty has arisen on previous occasions. Just as we sought to overcome the difficulties on previous occasions, so we shall again.

Mr. Crouch: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. It is difficult for Back Benchers to seek to raise a point of order with you, Mr. Speaker, because of your personal attributes, which we so much admire, but your advice to us today that we must confine ourselves to the business of next week is somewhat limiting, because we see the Leader of the House only once a week to ask him about the progress of parliamentary business. There is a rising incredulity in the country about how the Government will get their business, and that incredulity is shared by hon. Members on both sides of the House. Time is running out in this Session of Parliament. The days go by, particularly the Thursdays when the Lord President gets away without telling us how the Government will get their business. That is why I ask for a little latitude in pursuing the Leader of the House, who represents all our interests, and in whom we are gradually losing confidence.

Mr. Arthur Lewis: Further to that point of order, Mr. Speaker. The longstanding practice of the House for 30 or 40 years if the Leader of the House says that he cannot get certain business in next week is for an hon. Member to ask him to try to get it in the following week. If Mr. Speaker's ruling were strictly enforced, we should be unable to do that. It has been the custom for Speakers to follow precedent, and I am sure you will recollect that on many occasions hon. Members have asked whether it will be possible to take business in the first week after the recess. Would it not be difficult to enforce a strict interpretation of your ruling?

Mr. Speaker: I am grateful to the hon. Members for Canterbury (Mr. Crouch) and Newham, North-West (Mr. Lewis), who are both senior Members of the House with long service. I was trying to suggest to the House that questions should be related to the actual business of the House and not to wider matters. What the hon. Member for Newham, North-West said has, of course,

long been the practice, which I shall continue.

Mr. Peyton: Further to that point of order, Mr. Speaker. I am sure that we all understand your great difficulties and that you do not wish unduly to curtail the questions put to the Leader of the House on the handling of future business, whether next week or the week after.

Mr. Heffer: Get a hearing aid.

Mr. Peyton: No one needs a hearing aid to be able to hear the hon. Member for Liverpool, Walton (Mr. Heffer). We hear him without hearing aids, greatly to our misfortune, only too often.
May I say, in the hearing of the Leader of the House, that in the present almost unique jamb of parliamentary business it would be helpful to both sides of the House if the Leader of the House would take an opportunity early next week to make a statement on business for the remainder of the Session?

Mr. Michael Morris: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. Last Friday you and I and other hon. Members were told that there was to be an emergency Bill dealing with the water supply. Is it not surprising that the Government have made no statement about that?

Mr. Speaker: That is not a point of order, but the hon. Members for Northampton, South (Mr. Morris) has been bursting to ask the question.

Mr. Hordern: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. Am I correct in understanding that the Leader of the House is to take extraordinary measures to inform hon. Members of the substance of new clauses to be added to the Finance Bill which have not yet been put down? Will every hon. Member receive by personal delivery copies of the new clauses which are due to be debated next week?

Mr. Foot: Further to that point of order, Mr. Speaker. The measures we are taking are similar to measures taken on previous occasions to ensure that amendments which are put down late can be seen by the hon. Members who wish to see them. That is the procedure which has been followed on previous occasions for the convenience of the House, and that is what we are seeking to do now.

Mr. Lawson: Further to that point of order, Mr. Speaker. The Lord President gave an assurance that new clauses and amendments which have not yet been tabled will be sent by special delivery to all hon. Members and to outsiders whose interests were directly affected. Will the right hon. Gentleman say how this procedure will operate and what precisely will happen?

Mr. Foot: Further to that point of order, Mr. Speaker. I told the House how we should go about it. I did not say that the procedure would be that suggested by the hon. Member for Blaby (Mr. Lawson). It would be a mistake to try to do it in that way. We shall try to assist the House in exactly the same way as the Government have sought to do on previous occasions and in the same way as previous Governments have sought to do.

Mr. Biggs-Davison: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. You are the guardian of our rights, and the Leader of the House is an enthusiast for the dignity of Parliament. Is it true that there has been no request for a statement about the delay in the production of parliamentary papers? On Friday there were two important debates on Northern Ireland, one on the renewal of the present system of direct rule and the other on emergency powers. As you know, there is a very disturbed and troubled situation in Northern Ireland. Can it be right that Northern Ireland, not to mention Parliament, should be denied access to the proceedings of the House of Commons? Why is there no statement on this matter?

Mr. Speaker: The supply of papers is not my responsibility. It is the responsibility of someone else.

Mr. Foot: I fully accept that it is the responsibility of someone else. When it is someone else's responsibility, it is usually mine. If there are difficulties about the papers, we shall do our best to overcome them and to see how the difficulties have arisen. The debate on Friday was arranged by the Government in circumstances which I should have thought were most convenient to the House, and there was no criticism then. But I shall see what is the cause of the difficulties and how we can overcome them. As the House knows, once again this is not a novelty.

Several Hon. Members: Several Hon. Members rose—

Mr. Speaker: I draw the attention of the House to the fact that there is a lot of business to be done during the rest of the day. I appeal to hon. Members to make sure in their own hearts as well as in their minds that these are points of order.

Mr. Raphael Tuck: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. Every afternoon when we come into the House of Commons at half-past two it is a very cheery House. At four o'clock we are shrouded in darkness. Is that necessary? Can anything be done about it?

Mr. Speaker: If the hon. Gentleman sat on the other side of the House—which he does not wish to do—he might find that he would welcome the blinds.

Mr. Nott: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. This might be an appropriate moment at which to ask you whether you will give favourable consideration next week to the selection of starred amendments to the Finance Bill, because we shall probably not see any Government amendments in time to have the amendments unstarred. May I ask you also at this moment if you would take manuscript amendments if it should prove necessary?

Mr. Speaker: Obviously, starred amendments will have to be looked at with sympathy next week on this question because of the time factor. I do not wish to commit myself on manuscript amendments. I never like committing myself too far.

Sir Frederic Bennett: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I have searched my conscience and what I am about to raise is a genuine point of order. As far as I am aware, the Leader of the House made reference to Friday's Hansard, which is not available. When I telephoned about it this morning I could not obtain any date at all on which it might ever become available. It is relevant to ask, in the context of the current situation, whether a Hansard will one day be produced and, if so, when.

Mr. Speaker: The hon. Gentleman did not search deeply enough. I explained earlier that the provision of documents was not my responsibility, and this is not


the time for questioning the Leader of the House. I am taking points of order.

Mr. Ridley: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. To whom should I give my name and address this coming weekend if I wish to receive copies of the amendments and new clauses? Or are all Members to be circulated? Could we be told of the mechanism by which we may know how we shall receive the documents?

Mr. Speaker: I think that is a matter for the usual channels.

INDUSTRIAL STRATEGY

The Secretary of State for Industry (Mr. Eric G. Varley): With your permission, Mr. Speaker, I should like to make a statement about the progress on industrial strategy, which was the subject of an all-day meeting of the National Economic Development Council yesterday with my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister in the chair.
The Government's approach to industrial strategy was outlined in the White Paper published after the meeting of NEDC at Chequers last November. Our prime aim is to put Britain on the path to a high-wage, high-output, full-employment economy, by improving productive potential and the performance of manufacturing industry.
The prospects and problems of over 30 sectors of manufacturing industry were selected for more detailed examination, on a tripartite basis. These sectors represent about 60 per cent. of total manufacturing output. In the first phase of their work the sector working parties were asked to concentrate in particular on constraints or bottlenecks that might limit their ability to exploit the opportunities provided by the economic upturn. The working parties were further asked to recommend appropriate action. They were also asked to develop strategies for improving the performance of the sectors in the longer term, though it was recognised that this would take some time to complete.
The reports on the first stage of this work were considered by the NEDC yesterday. The council welcomed these reports as a very valuable first stage in the strategy programme. Many of the

individual sectoral reports will be made publicly available, although the decision to publish is a matter for each working party to take. Copies of a summary of the issues raised in the reports have been placed in the Library, together with copies of the covering paper that my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer and I presented to the NEDC.
We want this work to lead to action. Many of the recommendations of the working parties are addressed to the Government, and we shall be considering the action that we as a Government need to take. In some cases we have already been able to take the necessary steps. The NEB, planning agreements, the Manpower Services Commission, the schemes to encourage and accelerate investment, and other instruments of our policy, will all play their part.
Many of the recommendations are for action by management and unions at the level of the sector, the enterprise and the factory. The TUC and CBI have both undertaken to play their part.
The working parties themselves will also have an important rôle in their follow-up. The Government are setting in hand arrangements for monitoring and follow-up in collaboration with the CBI, the TUC and the National Economic Development Office.
At its next meeting the National Economic Development Council will go on to consider detailed proposals for the second stage of the work. The intention is for the sector working parties to report again by the end of the year, so that my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer can take account of their recommendations in the formulation of his Budget strategy.
It is essential for this country to develop an effective industrial strategy that will reverse the contraction of our industrial base and enable us to create wealth through industrial production. Only in this way can we achieve the social improvements to which we must aspire.
Our tripartite approach to industrial strategy has made an encouraging start and we intend to build on this for the future.

Mr. Heseltine: Does the Secretary of State agree that his announcement is designed to give a new sense of strength


and confidence to private enterprise companies? If so, to that extent I welcome it.
The real value of the exercise can be judged only by the result, which must obviously be something to be seen in the future, but does the Secretary of State agree that his statement today, with its reliance on the private sector, heralds the end of the view that a Labour Government, armed with compulsory powers, can create a climate for successful industry?
Does the Secretary of State further agree that the overwhelming conclusion from the whole NEDC exercise is that British industry does not make enough profit and does not keep enough of the profit that it makes?
Does the Secretary of State realise that, while the level of public expenditure keep interest rates at their present levels, and while tax rates and the Price Code remain a substantial deterrent, all the interesting, detailed proposals of the NEDC exercise will be dwarfed in their impact by the adverse economic climate?
Finally, will the Secretary of State confirm that where the National Enterprise Board is used as a vehicle for recycling taxes back to industry, there is no automatic insistence on an equity stake? Secondly, will he confirm that the NEB is no longer seen as an instrument for taking control of all profitable manufacturing companies?

Mr. Varley: Concerning the point about the NEB, it remains one of our major aims, crucial to the overall strategy. It will be for the National Enterprise Board to decide exactly how it proceeds. It has been given a wide measure of operational freedom. That is how it should remain. It is also the Government's intention that it should have funds.
I hope that the hon. Gentleman is also aware that the National Enterprise Board has been welcomed by private industry, and is also collaborating with private industry in many important projects, not only in this country but overseas.
As for profits, as a Government we have never denied the need for profitability. Changes have been made and announced to the House by my right hon. Friend on many occasions.
As to the question of private industry as opposed to public industry, it is the

Government's view that both sides of industry have a major rôle to play. It is not a question of heralding the end of one side or the other. There will be a cooperative approach to this matter. We have to make sure that we expand our manufacturing capacity in this country and improve our competitiveness and productivity. That is the way in which we should go about it.

Mr. Heffer: Will my right hon. Friend accept that that is a disappointing statement to many of us on the Government side of the House? It falls far short of the proposals in the national executive programme that will be placed before the Labour Party conference, which will call for a national planning campaign within the Government machinery, for compulsory planning agreements and for the National Enterprise Board to be reestablished as an instrument for extending public ownership along the lines originally envisaged by the Labour Party. Will my right hon. Friend take into consideration the points raised by the national executive committee and have a look at those proposals again?

Mr. Varley: I can tell my hon. Friend that "Labour and Industry, The Next Steps" is never far away from me, and I take all the provisions of that policy into account. I also take into account particular points in the Labour Party document, which says that we must ensure that necessary resources and savings are made available within the economy to make the investment available and also that the National Enterprise Board should not be a repository of "lame ducks". I can assure my hon. Friend that I do take those points into account.
As my hon. Friend was a Minister in my Department he will know that the Government have made it plain that planning agreements will be voluntary. I have said over and over again that I am not satisfied with the progress being made in respect of planning agreements. But I think that industry is much more relaxed about planning agreements, and many leading industrialists—[Interruption.] The hon. Member for Henley (Mr. Heseltine) chimes in and tries to scoff but I can tell him that many leading industrial companies in this country now realise the value of co-operating in planning agreements and building on the best


practices that exist within those companies. They know that if they are to harness much of the enthusiasm of the work force it will only be done on this basis.

Mr. Donald Stewart: Is the Secretary of State aware that, so far as some of us are concerned, his statement is a total nonevent? It was all light and sound, and signified nothing. It was much ado about nothing, and was a load of rubbish. It was an exercise in futility, equalled only by the rejoinder from the Conservative Front Bench.

Mr. Varley: It is difficult to please the Scottish National Party. [Interruption.] I see the gesture that the hon. Member for Western Isles (Mr. Stewart) is making. The hon. Gentleman makes gestures like that when he receives communications from the trade unions in Scotland, and we know exactly how to deal with them.
There has been some criticism, in terms of the tripartite approach that we are developing within NEDC, that Parliament has not been consulted. It will take a long time to develop a strategy, and we felt that it would be best if we took the first opportunity to report progress to the House of Commons and get the views of hon. Members. I think we can all disregard what the hon. Gentleman said. I know that his views are not shared by Scottish trade unionists and Scottish industrialists.

Mr. Hugh Fraser: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. Can the House be protected from Ministers coming here and making totally meaningless statements which signify absolutely nothing? It really is an abuse of public time—

Mr. Speaker: Order. I wish the House could be protected against points of order that are not points of order.

Mr. John Garrett: Will my right hon. Friend tell the House what machinery exists in this planning system for the planning of imports?

Mr. Varley: When my hon. Friend has had a chance to look at the sectoral reports—and I am sure he will do so because he considers these matters a great deal—he will see that some sectors have made recommendations about imports and import penetration. In fact, arising

out of the initial discussion there are about 350 recommendations, of which 200 call for action by the Government. I would tell the House that we will not be able to accept all these recommendations —no one would expect us to accept them all—but we are already studying them and we want to see how best we can develop this strategy. In addition, 150 recommendations call for action from management and trade unions, and that is equally important. It is not just an exercise for the Government to deliver the goods that would improve our performance, but it depends on this approach.

Mr. Crouch: Will the Secretary of State at least take it from me that I for one am grateful for having this fairly quick reply about what went on yesterday outside Parliament in the important consultations between two sides of industry? Will he also bear in mind that there is increasing concern in Parliament, and I think outside, that these consultations should bear a greater relevance to the problems of the country and, that Parliament should be involved, not just to hear a report, but to take part in such discussions? Will he give some thought, with his friends and colleagues in the Cabinet, as well as the Prime Minister, to the need for involving Parliament in these important consultations in future? If Parliament cannot be involved completely in the decision-making process, should it not at least be involved in the consideration of the decision that is so important to this country's economic future?

Mr. Varley: I very much agree with the hon. Gentleman and thank him for his remarks. We thought it necessary and desirable to report to the House of Commons what took place. In fact, I am sure the criticism would have been the other way had we not taken this first opportunity to report to the House. We shall look at ways of getting the House involved in the discussions. It is highly desirable that hon. Gentlemen on both sides should take an interest in this work if we are to get the collaborative approach which is desired.

Mr. Arthur Lewis: Is the Minister aware that I listened to his statement with interest, because I heard reports of this on the radio? I also heard the Prime


Minister's statement, which was also in favour of helping private industry make profits. However, I have just heard of a company which, following the Government's example, reports a 20 per cent. increase in profits, to £80 million. That was done after paying hundreds of thousands of pounds to company directors, and paying them hundreds of thousands of pounds in perks. Since Mr. Tiny Rowland is free, perhaps my right hon. Friend could get him to come in to help. Perhaps he could also appoint Lord Duncan Sandys to the board. Those people are apparently doing exactly what the Government want them to do.

Mr. Varley: That just proves how difficult it is to please hon. Members in all parts of the House. As far as I am concerned—the Government have made it plain time and again—the White Paper produced in August 1974 by my predecessor in the Department, concerning the regeneration of British industry, said that we wanted to see a vigorous, alert and profitable private sector of industry. If we are ever to fulfil the social policies that my hon. Friend and I share it will only be on the basis of making sure that we expand our industry and our manufacturing base. If my hon. Friend does not understand that, he does not understand anything.

Mr. Tebbit: Will the Secretary of State say whether he feels that this statement and the policies of the NEDC fit in more comfortably with the Prime Minister's newly announced intention to help support, nurture and cherish the acceptable face of capitalism by assisting capitalist companies to make greater profits, or whether they fit more into the Secretary of State for Energy's intentions, announced last night, of nationalising more of the private sector to bring it under direct State control?

Mr. Varley: It is always very easy for hon. Gentlemen to refer to speeches that other Ministers have made and to suggest that there are conflicts in the Government. I ask the hon. Gentleman, instead of trying to create difficulties, or referring to problems in the Labour Party, to look at his own Front Bench. There are five or six different economic policies. There is the Heath policy, the Joseph policy, and so on. He would be better advised to try to sort out his own right hon. and

hon. Friends than try to pick a quarrel with me.

Mr. MacFarquhar: I welcome my right hon. Friend's announcement, but will he say whether or not, at yesterday's meeting of NEDC, measures were discussed to ensure that the greater room for manoeuvre which has been given to private companies under the Government's policy will genuinely make them invest in manufacturing industry in a way which has not happened in the past 30 years?

Mr. Varley: It is absolutely essential that investment should go ahead. The commitment made by the President of the CBI yesterday is something that we welcome. He took part in the discussions, along with the TUC, and on this tripartite basis joined in the Press conference afterwards. I do not want to quote all Lord Watkinson's words, but he said that the CBI would co-operate with the industrial strategy and make it a success.
I would say this to my hon. Friends, who should observe what is taking place within this general framework—

Mr. Skinner: We know what is taking place.

Mr. Varley: My hon. Friend keeps shouting. I know that I can always rely on his full support for everything I do, but what we must do is ensure that this policy is a success. I think that some of my hon. Friends—

Mr. Heffer: Some of us have remained Socialists, Eric.

Mr. Varley: My hon. Friend shouts. I do not want to pick up every point that is made, but he was in the Department of Industry and made the winding-up speech in the Second Reading debate on the Industry Act 1975, when he said that planning agreements would be voluntary, and he subscribed to all the then policies of the Government. He has probably changed over the last five months; I have not.

Mr. Michael Marshall: Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that there are a vast number of commitments, or rather recommendations, on which the Government have to act if they are not to be regarded as a window-dressing exercise by the large number of working, parties? It would be helpful if we could be told


how he saw his Department working through these recommendations. On the steel working party, will he say whether the recommendation that the arrangement whereby the independent sector, the British Steel Corporation, the unions and the Government should go on having that forum, will or will not be accepted by the Government?

Mr. Varley: The steel working party produced a valuable report. Within the sector reports, concern was expressed again and again that when the upturn gets under way there will be steel shortages. Sir Monty Finniston, who is a member of the NEDC, had a good deal to say about supply and customer relationships. That work is to continue within the framework of NEDC. I cannot give the hon. Gentleman a complete answer about how the work will proceed —that is very much for the working party and the National Economic Development Office to decide—but we shall take account of what he said.

Mr. Moonman: My right hon. Friend is to be congratulated on persisting with a very difficult policy, with all the problems that have been outlined. What analysis was made of the sectors—that is, what steps were taken to see whether the traditional industries should get greater priority than the industries of innovation? My right hon. Friend could stimulate a greater sense of urgency at the meeting if the report could come back before the end of the year. That seems a long way off.

Mr. Varley: What I have tried to emphasise again and again is that this is not a one-off exercise; it is not a question of producing reports and then leaving them and saying that the work has been done. We shall return to the industrial strategy work at every meeting of the NEDC. Already, some of the proposals for action are being taken. Further reports will be put before the NEDC in January, and certainly in good time for the Budget, or when my right hon. Friend frames his Budget. That is the way in which we hope to proceed, and

the situation will develop. Given the nature of our society, we cannot have an instant industrial strategy. That is the lesson that we must learn.

Several Hon. Members: Several Hon. Membersrose—

Mr. Speaker: Order. We must move on. We cannot debate this matter now.

BILL PRESENTED

BREEDING OF ANIMALS FOR VIVISECTION (PROHIBITION OF EXPORT AND OTHER CONTROLS)

Mr. F. A. Burden, supported by Mr. Phillip Whitehead, Sir Bernard Braine, Mr. Richard Wainwright, Miss Janet Fookes, and Mr. Kenneth Lomas, presented a Bill to prohibit the export of animals for purposes of vivisection; to provide for the licensing of premises where animals are bred for vivisection and for the regular inspection of such premises; to apply the Breeding of Dogs Act 1973 to such premises in respect of the bedding and exercise of dogs and of other matters; and for purposes connected therewith: And the same was read the First time; and ordered to be read a Second time upon Friday 16th July and to be printed. [Bil1187].

STATUTORY INSTRUMENTS

Ordered,
That the draft Regional Employment Premium (Continuation of Payment) (Winsford) (Amendment) Order 1976 be referred to a Standing Committee on Statutory Instruments. &amp;c.—[Mr. Pendry.]

SCOTTISH ESTIMATES

Ordered,
That the Estimates set out hereunder be referred to the Scottish Grand Committee:—
Class III, Vote 2, Agricultural Support (Department of Agriculture and Fisheries for Scotland).
Class III, Vote 6, Other Agricultural Services (Department of Agriculture and Fisheries for Scotland).—[Mr. Pendry.]

Orders of the Day — RACE RELATIONS BILL

As amended (in the Standing Committee), considered.

New Clause 1

KEEPING OF RECORDS

(1) With a view to assisting the Commission to decide whether to conduct a formal investigation the Secretary of State may, from such day as he may by order appoint, require any employer who employs more than twenty-five employees (in addition to any employed for the purpose of his private household) to establish and maintain records of the colour, race, nationality, ethnic or national origins of his employees in such form and manner as may be prescribed.

(2) The Secretary of State may by statutory instrument make regulations as to the establishment and making of such records and in this section the expression "prescribed" means prescribed by these regulations.

(3) The power of the Secretary of State to make such regulations shall include the power to make provision by those regulations for the communication of the information contained in those records to the Commission, and the extent (if any) to which the Commission, may disclose the information contained in those records.

(4) In this section employee shall mean a person employed under a contract of service or of apprenticeship.

(5) Without prejudice to the provisions of this section, the Commission shall from time to time, with the approval of Secretary of State, make and publish recommendations for the keeping by Government departments, local authorities, employers, trade unions and other relevant bodies and organisations such records as may assist in the elimination of discrimination and the promotion of equality of opportunity.—[Mr. Willey.]

Brought up, and read the First time.

4.17 p.m.

Mr. Frederick Willey: I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.
I believe that the new clause speaks for itself. It raises again a matter which we discussed in Committee. I have raised it again because I have since had discussions with the London Region Community Relations Officer and some members of the Community Relations Commission, who have impressed on me its importance. The clause is an amalgam.

Subsection (5) is declaratory and merely gives a statutory emphasis to monitoring. The other provisions refer to the formal investigation which can be held by the Commission.
As the Bill stands, the Commission can obtain such facts as are available. What we discussed in Committee was the situation when facts are not available which are pertinent to any such investigation. The new clause would place an obligation to inquire and establish the relevant facts upon the firm which might be the subject of an investigation. In other words, although the firm might not have records which would give the information which the Commission would require, the clause gives power to provide for that information to be required so as to make the investigation a full and proper one.
This provision has precedent in the Chronically Sick and Disabled Persons Act. These proposals are flexible. We are not seeking to impose any general responsibility. This is because when the Select Committee was in the United States last Session it was impressed by two things—first, the importance of an effective monitoring system. That was cardinal to such success as the system has had in the United States. Second, we were equally impressed with the fact that the system in the United States is far too legalistic and bureaucratic for this country. It is on a scale which is wholly inappropriate. Furthermore, in the essential work of monitoring, the Commission will have to direct priorities.
My difficulty, which the Minister will appreciate, is that the Select Committee has not yet had a reply to the proposals in its report last Session. That means that we do not yet know which administrative measures will be taken to back up the legislative provision to which we are now agreeing. That puts us in a difficulty but I hope that the Government can at least assure us that they are as convinced of the importance of monitoring as the Select Committee was, and that, whether in legislative form or not, they are prepared to provide machinery to make the monitoring effective. I have purposely made the provisions flexible with that end in view. I am not trying to impose on the Government. I am trying to provide for the powers to be there if needed.

Mr. J. Enoch Powell: If it were the intention of the right hon. Member for Sunderland, North (Mr. Willey) to use the new clause as a means of criticising the whole approach of antidiscrimination legislation, I doubt whether he could have done a better job. From that point of view, he deserves the thanks of the House for the work he has put into it and the satirical powers of which his product bears such eloquent evidence.
The experience of those who have considered this type of anti-discrimination legislation is shared by those who have had the misfortune to try to consider others. In reading the new clause I was vividly reminded—I refer to it only for purposes of analogy—of the experience of those who considered in detail the Fair Employment (Northern Ireland) Bill [Lords]. Perhaps our experience in considering that legislation will be of direct instruction in the present context.
The original notion of those who proposed the legislation in the first place was that one of the duties of the relevant authority would be not merely to require but actually to assist employers to keep registers. In that case it was a register of religion.
4.30 p.m.
Fortunately, however, the proposals had been knocking about long enough for it to be perfectly evident that if employers were forced to make records of the religion of their employees and to inquire minutely into these matters, the only effect would be to highlight differences in religion, to throw up questions of quotas and whether percentages were evidence of discrimination, and finally to leave things far more tense and difficult than they had been at first. That legislation was concerned with a fairly simple matter—although not so simple as at first sight appeared. It was not just a question of Catholic or Protestant. We discovered in the course of our deliberations that there were Socinians and certain others who had to be catered for, so that it was a big job to establish scientifically and factually, and in the proper form, as the right hon. Gentleman wishes, records showing whether there was discrimination.
Let us look at what it is that employers are to be obliged to inquire into in respect of their employees. They are to maintain records of colour. Is there to be

a Ringelmann chart against which will be held the complexion of each employee and the appropriate reading entered? There is a difficulty here. The Ringelmann chart will not be adequate. Although it will indicate degrees of depth of colouration, the Ringelmann chart will not indicate tint. Surely it is important that the difference between the same intensity of yellow or brown tint should be registered, since clearly there can be colour discrimination on that ground.
When an employer has finished looking at his employees from the point of view of colour as he takes them on and has entered their respective colours on the register, he has to enter their race. Race is something that scientists have found it extremely difficult satisfactorily to define. I feel that it will be useless to leave employers to decide. The House will have observed the cunning criticism which the right hon. Gentleman has cast into the form of the new clause, criticism which destroys the validity of the legislation. That criticism is not limited to the clause. It goes to the Bill as a whole.
What is race? Of what race are some of us respectively to be entered by our respective employers? If there is to be discrimination and if there is to be a law against discrimination on grounds of race, it is not only as employers, it is not only under the terms of a clause such as this, that we must know what race is. Is an Englishman of a different race from a Welshman? Are all Welshmen of the same race? Are all—[Interruption.] Did someone mention intelligence? No? Fortunately, we do not have to consider the difficulties which would arise if that were introduced. No doubt it will come.
I think that it was a voice from the future which was heard from somewhere in the House just then, because it is of the nature of anti-discriminatory legislation that it can never stop. There is no point at which new grounds of discrimination cannot be discovered and cannot therefore, by parity of reasoning, be made the subject of anti-discriminatory legislation. On similar grounds, it will seem to be unfair that merely on grounds of intelligence, especially in cases where intelligence is not precisely relevant to the form of employment, there should be discrimination between one person and another.

Mr. Ronald Bell: We are considering a Bill which is outlawing selection on the grounds of ability. It is a form of discrimination, a prevalent one, which my right hon. Friend has not considered. Nor has he considered the interesting distinction between race and ethnic origin. That is fascinating.

Mr. Powell: I was coming to that, because I had noticed the words "ethnic origin" coming up. My hon. and learned Friend is right to remind me and the House that in all matters of discrimination on one particular set of criteria all the other criteria on which in that context discrimination might legitimately take place are necessarily involved. We must decide whether discrimination was exercised on grounds of intelligence before we can eliminate that ground of discrimination and be sure that we have correctly fastened upon the ground which the legislation seeks to penalise.
I return to the absurdity that we are legislating to create what in their enforcement will be, whatever else is said, criminal offences upon the ground of a criterion which defies successful definition. There is no successful definition or criterion of race. Employers would be unable unambiguously to compile a register—and such a register could not be made the basis of proceedings—on the grounds of the race of their employees. When I referred to the races—they have often been so called in the past—which form the indigenous population of the British Isles, my notion was by no means far-fetched since there have been cases in which the difference between a Scotsman and an Englishman has formed the basis of proceedings under the existing law. The right hon. Member for Sunderland, North deserves the thanks of the House in that he has prevented us at this stage of the legislation from simply gliding over the notion of race as though it were something self-evident, something which was unambiguously clear to anyone who might seek to obey the law.
The fact is that the races in a single nation, in a single homogenous nation, are so variously present that there can perhaps be hardly a single discrimination which we make in our ordinary life where some element which might anthropomorphologically be described as "race" is not present in our judgment.

The right hon. Gentleman did not go far enough in his preparation of the new clause. I believe that it ought to have been accompanied by a schedule. If he intends to make it obligatory to maintain records of colour and race, he should have provided a schedule which laid out the various categories of colour and race —I go no further for the moment—which an employer should be required to inquire into from his employee and enter upon the register for inspection in due course by the commission.
We come to nationality. I suppose that the employer can be required to demand a passport from all his employees. He has to make the same sort of inquiry as is made by the Passport Office when it issues a passport, but he has also to inquire in the case of a person who is not a citizen of this country—I am aware that the expression is one which has no precise legal meaning—what is his nationality.
Great objection has been taken over the years by many public servants, let alone private persons employing others, to the very suggestion that they should be asked to inquire into the nationality of those with whom they are dealing. If my memory does not play me false, there was almost a strike on the part of employees of the Department of Health and Social Security when it was suggested that before issuing an insurance card they should perhaps ask to see the person's passport.

Mr. John Stokes: I asked the Home Secretary the other day whether he could let me have by nationality the number of persons who had been convicted under the various Race Relations Acts. He said that no distinction was made.

Mr. Powell: That is an irony, and I am sure that we shall muse upon what we have just been told by my hon. Friend the Member for Halesowen and Stourbridge (Mr. Stokes), that the same body, acting under the very legislation which is set up for the purposes of outlawing discrimination, refuses to discriminate, refuses to maintain records of the very characteristics upon the basis of which discrimination is to be outlawed.
As I was saying, it is well known that objection is taken by many Government Departments to the very suggestion that,


in going about their business and in carrying out their statutory duties, they should make a record of the nationality, that they should ask for evidence of the nationality, of the persons with whom they deal.
The right hon. Member for Sunderland, North is correct: it will be necessary —it is implicit in the logic of the Bill— that the employer should inquire jealously into the nationality of the persons whom he is employing or whom he may consider employing lest he should unawares —for to do it unawares is no defence—be discriminating upon ground of nationality.
Indeed, he would be hard put to it if, in some process entered into by the commission, he were to be asked "What inquiry did you make, Mr. Smith, to ascertain the nationality of your employees?" If he replied "I never inquire into that matter at all", he would no doubt be asked "How, then, Mr. Smith, can you prove to us that you are not exercising discrimination on grounds of nationality if you do not even inquire into what the nationality is, if you do not maintain records of nationality, if when a person comes to your personnel officer and presents himself for recruitment one of the first questions is not Can we please see your passport or, at any rate, your birth certificate and the birth certificates and marriage lines of your mother and father?'."
Then the right hon. Gentleman invites us—and not only us, but those to whom his new clause would apply—to contemplate ethnic origin. This is a delicious but not unimportant excursion into which he has inveigled us. Race we have left behind—that hateful four-letter word which, because it not only trips off the tongue so easily but fits in very large letters into headlines, has so often been used when race was not meant at all, has so often been substituted for the 11-letter word "immigration" when what was being talked about was not race at all. But that four-letter word we have left behind in our examination of these proposals. We have come to ethnic origin.
4.45 p.m.
Clearly the right hon. Gentleman must consider ethnic origin to be rather different from race, otherwise I am sure he would not have drawn his new clause with the tautology that he has. I believe that I missed only the first few words of his

speech in commending the new clause to the House, and unless he did so in those first few words he omitted to explain what is the difference between race and ethnic origin. However, he does think, for he has given the matter consideration, that it is something that should be clear and ever present to an employer of over 25 persons, because he believes that, for the effectiveness of the legislation, the employer should not only be aware of what is meant by "race" but should be so sensitive to the nuances that he can distinguish ethnic origin from race.
One can imagine the kind of interrogation which would be necessary. The potential employer is interviewing Jones, an applicant from South Wales, for a job. "What is your race, Mr. Jones?" "I am a Welshman. I am one of the Cymry." "Yes, it is all very well for you to say that you are a Welshman. I do not mind putting that down under the place here which says 'race', but what is your ethnic origin?" "Ethnic origin? Is that different?" "Yes, it is, because we have a form here from the commission, and under 'B' it says 'race' but when I go down to 'D' I find ethnic origin'."
"Well, come to think of it," replies Jones, "my grandfather on my mother's side when the mines were opened in this valley—mind you, I am not absolutely sure but I am giving you information to the best of my ability—came from Ireland." "Your maternal grandfather came from Ireland?" "Yes, so I have always heard." "Thank you, Jones. That has helped a great deal, because this must be something to do with your ethnic origin. Can you tell me what part of Ireland he came from? The difficulty is that we have these pesky people in Ulster, and according to my understanding they are a different race there from the people in the rest of the island of Ireland, and so for all I know they may be of a distinctive ethnic origin."
To cut a short story still shorter, in the case I am imagining, of course the potential employer will settle to say "Never mind"—let us suppose that he came from Tipperary—"we will write in your ethnic origin as Irish and we will go on to the next—'national origin' —which, it will be observed is different from 'nationality'. I have your passport


and I note what it says, that you are a citizen of the United Kingdom and Colonies, and I have worked out from the three Acts of Parliament to be taken together that you are not just patrial—let that pass—you are a citizen of the United Kingdom and Colonies. But that will not do. I also have to enter your national origin. So could we enter into your antecedents, because they cannot have been citizens of the United Kingdom and Colonies since that description was invented only in 1948 and you look a bit older than that to me."
But I will not go further into the labyrinth. The whole point of this and the value of the debate which the right hon. Gentleman—unwittingly, I am sure, and not with malice prepense—has initiated is that it shows up the absurdity of attempting to base legislation outlawing and penalising discrimination upon criteria so indefinable, so subtle, so remote, so much a matter, if they were to be determined, of minute and absurd inquiry that even in looking into one line of the new clause we have been led into some of the considerations which I have laid before the House.
I conclude simply by saying—and I do not wish to disappoint the right hon. Member for Sunderland, North or to appear ungrateful to him—that if he should carry the new clause to a vote I shall vote against it. But I do not want him to think that I am doing that because his clause is not a natural and logical deduction from the whole consequence of the Bill. It is. In a way, it is a very effective speech against the Bill which he has crystallised into the form of a new clause on Report. The reason why I shall vote against it is that I shall vote against the Bill too.

Mr. David Lane: . As a fellow member of the Select Committee on Race Relations and Immigration, the Chairman of which was the mover of the new clause, I support in general, but not in detail, the purpose for which he introduced it. If the right hon. Member for Down, South (Mr. Powell) were ever capable of looking without prejudice at the real problems of race relations in Britain he would realise that no policy for equal opportunity will succeed unless there is some arrangement for sensible

record keeping or monitoring. Equally, if the right hon. Gentleman applied his mind, without prejudice, to the lessons of America—although he has warned us about going into undue detail, which was the American mistake—he would understand that record keeping of a sensible kind works, and is accepted to work.
In Committee the Minister of State—who was dealing with a broadly similar clause, which was confined to subsection (5) of the present new clause—took a lofty and remote view of the Government's responsibility for that. He said that monitoring might be useful in certain respects but that it was not 'for the Government to take the lead. He said that the initiative would be better taken by the Commission. It is not satisfactory to leave the matter there. My view was borne out by a conversation that I had this morning with a man who has some experience in the South of London.
The Government should give more of a lead, not only by indicating the kind of records they propose to keep in Government employment but by inserting into the Bill the type of phrasing that has been suggested. I want to explain why I am uneasy about certain parts of the new clause.
The Government should either advise the House to do what I have suggested or go further than they went in Committee, by indicating their view about the scope and type of record keeping that might be necessary, leaving the other details to the commission, if that is what the Government desire. If an equal opportunities policy is to succeed, the phrasing of subsection (5) is about as far as we should go if we are to write something into the Bill.
My criticism of the new clause is that subsections (1) to (4) pick out one group of people—the employers—for this unnecessarily detailed requirement. Record keeping does not apply only to employers; it may apply even more to trade unions. That view is borne out by the man to whom I spoke this morning. I understand that trade unions are even more hesitant about keeping records than are employers. That is an area on which the searchlight should be turned.
One could also mention schools. That is something that the right hon. Member


for Down, South tends to ignore. It has proved difficult in the past to devise a form of record keeping. Likewise, everyone who pays attention to the real problems on the ground has concluded that, even without the former definitions of the Department of Education and Science, some way must be found of measuring the needs of children of different groups in different education areas. Schools are a good example.

Mr. Eric S. Heffer: I am torn about this matter, and I do not know the answer. Can the hon. Member for Cambridge (Mr. Lane) tell me why a trade union must say specifically that a man is black or brown or yellow or white? If a person joins a trade union, one asks whether that person is a carpenter, a joiner or an engineer. That is the only qualification required, and that has nothing whatever to do with colour.
If one has a list of housing in a local authority area, why should one say that a person is black and therefore has to be qualified as black? If that person is qualified to be on the housing register it does not matter what his colour is. I am worried about this, because I understand that under certain circumstances there can be discrimination because of one's colour or ethnic origin. I am concerned that we should get the matter right.

Mr. Lane: So am I. It is one of the most difficult issues in the debate.
In most cases nothing of the kind is necessary for trade unions, but I am told that in certain areas of London the trade unions are most reluctant to accept that there is a need for record keeping of any kind, in the trade union or any other sphere of life.
The hon. Member for Liverpool, Walton (Mr. Heffer) mentioned local authority housing. I am sure that he has seen the evidence of a number of surveys, which suggests that families from the ethnic minorities tend to congregate in less desirable areas. There is a need for monitoring in those areas, so that people can judge whether a local authority is operating a fair housing policy between families of different racial groups.

Mr. Joseph Dean: The question of the location of council hous-

ing is difficult. I have had some association with the Manchester redevelopment programme in one of the biggest ghettos in the country—Moss Side. We did not keep a register, but the operation went like clockwork, and a survey by the community health council commended the way in which the problem was handled. I am not convinced of the need for the new clause.

Mr. Lane: I accept that in some areas there is no problem at all, but in other areas the evidence proves that there is.
Subsections (1) and (4) are directed specifically at employers, when we should be concerned with other aspects of life, but not in such detail. We should have a clearer idea, either from the Bill or from the Treasury Bench, of the way in which the Government view the need for record keeping. I hope that the Minister will take account not only of what was said in our brief debate in Standing Committee but of what has been said so far today.

5.0 p.m.

Mr. Cyril Smith: As this is the first time I have commented on the Bill I take this opportunity to say that I welcome it, but I have grave reservations about the new clause.
When people pass legislation saying that records must be kept they should remember that someone has to keep those records. To say that employers must keep cards and so on is to place an unreasonable burden on them, especially as the clause refers to people employing 25 workers or more. The keeping of such records would be justifiable if as a consequence they made any contribution towards the purpose of the Bill, which is to improve race relations. I am aware that the right hon. Member for Sunderland, North (Mr. Willey) said that he was not imposing a condition that records should be kept. However, the clause gives somebody the right to impose that requirement. It is a fine distinction.
I cannot believe that the clause will make the slightest contribution towards improving race relations, which, like hon. Members on both sides of the House, I am anxious to do. I have a large immigrant community in my constituency, like the hon. Member for Leeds, West (Mr. Dean), about whose work on this matter I know. I have been chairman of a


housing committee and an education committee, and have dealt with the problems of immigrants. I was founder chairman of a community relations council.
I do not see how the keeping of records by an employer, whether voluntarily or compulsorily, can help to improve race relations. An unnecessary requirement to keep records about people is highly dangerous and a move towards 1984. I do not like records about people being kept for the joy of a civil servant, a member of a commission or a bright judge who has the brilliant idea that it might be a good thing to require a firm to keep records of all its employees stating their rate of pay, colour, age, creed, nationality and so on. That is a highly dangerous road along which to proceed.
Therefore, although I entirely accept that it has been a good thing for the House to discuss the matter, I hope that the right hon. Member for Sunderland, North will seek to withdraw the motion. If he does not, I shall be compelled to vote against it.

Mr. Ronald Bell: I feel that I should start by congratulating the hon. Member for Rochdale (Mr. Smith) on his first speech from the Liberal Back Benches.

Mr. Heffer: I did not know that there were any.

Mr. Cyril Smith: Some have more front than others.

Mr. Bell: That brings me straight to the problems of the clause because it shows the difficulties of definition in these matters. My right hon. Friend the Member for Down, South (Mr. Powell)—to whom I prefer to refer as my right hon. Friend the Member for South Down, because "Down, South" always makes him sound like an American senator—looked at the clause with much the same eyes as I did. There is no need for me to repeat the scrupulous and penetrating analysis with which he enlightened and diverted the House.
I do not know whether the right hon. Member for Sunderland, North (Mr. Willey) was unconscious of the irony of the clause. He and I are always on very good terms, because on happy days we pair with each other. I do not know whether we have started that process again yet. I suppose that it is almost a

precondition of a pairing arrangement that those concerned should have opposite views on most matters that come before the House. Otherwise, there would be no point in pairing.
I have no difficulty in pairing with the right hon. Gentleman on the clause. The difficulties of definition are only one aspect of the matter. It should be remembered that it is not we—not myself, not my right hon. Friend the Member for South Down or anyone on this side of the House who takes the same view—who have brought the Ringlemann chart into these debates. Apart from that, let us remember that often enough hon. Members on both sides of the House have asked questions about the number of coloured children in schools. We have wanted to know whether what some police officers have said about the statistics of coloured crime is correct. There are many matters on which we have wanted that kind of information. We are always told that the information is not available and should not be available, that it would be wrong, and that decisions are not made on those criteria.
When we wanted to know—I believe for the most legitimate reasons—the number of coloured children in schools, where the significance is obvious, the National Union of Teachers refused to collect the statistics, on principle—what principle, I do not know. I think that it was the Select Committee of the right hon. Member for Sunderland, North that called for the statistics, and in evidence the NUT said "You will not have them, because it is wrong to give them".

Mr. Powell: My hon. and learned Friend may wish to add that the NUT accepted that it would count children in schools by ethnic origin if the children and their parents had entered this country within the past 10 years. It would not count them otherwise. So the absurdity was even more crass.

Mr. Bell: Yes, and the implication even greater. Only one more little box would be needed on the form, but the NUT was opposed in principle to more information being given about the ethnic or racial composition of our education establishments.
My hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge (Mr. Lane) suggested that the


giving of information should not be confined to employers. We should end up with a sort of Domesday Book about everybody's race, nationality, ethnic origin, national origin, and so on. My right hon. Friend has gone into the matter. My hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge suggested that trade unions and a number of other categories of people should be involved. We should have a complete book—and this under an antidiscrimination Bill.
Does there not underlie this thinking another very dangerous factor, which I observed in the Sex Discrimination Act, namely, the assumption that there is discrimination to the disadvantage of some sections of the population if their number in a certain occupation or grade does not correspond to their numerical proportion of the population? That was said explicitly, and repeatedly by those who supported the Sex Discrimination Act. It is implied much more cautiously in race relations matters, but always the implication is present that if numbers are counted we shall be able to determine whether an employer or trade union, for example, has been excluding people because of their race, nationality or colour. It is thought that when the figures are counted and it is found that the numerical proportion is not right, we shall have caught that employer or trade union.
That is a lot of rubbish. I thought it was argued that employees should be chosen on their ability, regardless of their colour or ethnic origin. If that led to all employees in a certain grade being white, for example, but being all chosen on merit, that would be right. I thought that was the idea. If it is, the numerical count does not have much to do with it.
As I have said, there is always the implication that the numerical basis is the right approach. I believe it was the right hon. Member for Sunderland, North who invited us to be instructed by the American example. Indeed, race relations legislation in Britain is almost slavishly modelled on the American example, as is sex discrimination legislation. I am sorry to say that the Equal Opportunities Commission applies a strict numerical ratio.
There is the famous telephone example. I always forget what the Bell Telephone Company is now, regrettably, named, but

I think it is ITT. It has had to agree to a settlement that has been made a rule of court, that in each of the 180 districts of the United States in which it operates, and at every level of operation, from the bottom to the top, the staffing must reflect exactly the numerical composition of the available population.
How much sillier can we get than that? The ascertaining of numerical composition is based on the sort of statistics that the new clause is designed to collect, and for that purpose. Therefore, I consider it to be a dangerous and revealing clause. After saying that, it is almost a climax to refer to the tyrannous mechanics of the clause. It empowers the Secretary of State to require any employer to provide the necessary information. There is no requirement that there should be a Statutory Instrument or a Regulation. There is no provision for any sort of appeal. The Secretary of State can say "You do it. If you do not do it, you will have committed an offence."
What about the statistics thus collected? Is there to be no appeal on the part of the person so recorded? He might be recorded as a Chinaman of Irish ethnic origin, or goodness knows what else, but it seems that he would have no right to complain. I suppose that the information would be fed into computers. When someone wanted a Chinaman of Irish ethnic origin to make good Scots porridge, the card would be put in the computer and out would come the nonsense. As the right hon. Member for Down, South said, that caricatures this legislation. It is oppressive, intrusive, impertinent and absurd.
The House will agree with me when I say that no one has been a stronger opponent of immigration than myself. However, I have always voiced my opposition without attacking the immigrant community. I have never blamed that community, because in its position I would have done the same thing. I blame politicians on both sides of the House for allowing such a volume of immigrants to come in. It is possible to take the strongest line on the issue without having the slightest animosity towards those who have taken advantage of an opportunity that should not, as a matter of good husbandry, have been offered to them.
5.15 p.m.
This sort of legislation, whether it is the Race Relations Act 1965, the Race Relations Act 1968 or the Sex Discrimination Act 1975, crystallises and builds up tensions, hostilities and resentments. It provides a focus for the anger of the native population, which is not used to being kicked around. We have never had this sort of legislation before. We do not need this kind of thing. We shall always have the odd incidence of untypical behaviour, with or without legislation. The question is whether that sort of incidence has been typical. The answer is that it has not. It has not been typical in this country, although I accept that America presents a different picture.
In so far as such behaviour has occurred, it was an understandable expression of resentment at the total failure of political leaders of both main parties to reflect and give expression to the desire that the inward flow should be properly controlled.
I shall oppose the new clause. I shall vote against it if the matter is taken to a Division. I hope that it will be, and I encourage the right hon. Gentleman to take it to a vote. However, I fear that after listening to what has been said on both sides of the House the right hon. Gentleman will probably ask leave to withdraw it.

Mrs. Millie Miller: One can understand the hesitancy that is felt, certainly among my hon. Friends, about the keeping of records, especially in such detail. It may well be feared that they pose a threat to the freedom of all of us. However, we must be left with a feeling of doubt and hesitation after the entertainment and rhetoric that have come from some who have spoken from the Opposition Benches.
I wonder at their motives. The hon. and learned Member for Beaconsfield (Mr. Bell) has admitted quite freely—and it is well known in the House—his own record of opposition to immigration. His opposition to the clause is not surprising, but is he saying that we should take no measures to ensure that immigrants are settled in the community, given their rightful place in the community, and given a rightful proportion of jobs, education and other

facilities that are available to other members of our society? He may say that, but I find it difficult to accept from the right hon. Member for Down, South (Mr. Powell), who himself was responsible for one of the earliest waves of coloured immigration as the Minister of Health in an earlier Conservative Administration. The right hon. Gentleman attempts to cover over that episode. I feel that he was sincere only when he said that he intended to vote against this measure.
This is a difficult area. Many people are concerned about the retention of privacy in our society. I sympathise with the hon. and learned Member for Beaconsfield when he says that much of the material might well be collected and put in computers to the detriment of society at some later date. However, there is no doubt that in the present situation it is necessary for some form of monitoring to take place. That is necessary in our determination of the way in which the immigrant groups and those of immigrant origin should be integrated in our society. For example, there is the unemployment of young people. We were told only yesterday that the number of young people of coloured origin who are now unemployed is twice that of the young unemployed white population. Presumably that information was obtained by somebody keeping records.

Mr. Cyril Smith: I agree on the need for integration, but I do not agree on the need for monitoring. However, if any monitoring is necessary for the purpose of integration, is the hon. Lady suggesting that the monitoring should be carried out by the Government in regard to the number of jobs available and in what industries they are available and so on, rather than, as suggested in the clause, a monitoring by the firm in regard to individuals?

Mrs. Miller: I was not suggesting that monitoring should be undertaken to admit people to jobs. I was saying that children of immigrants who are already in this country are being discriminated against to the extent that twice as many of those young people are unemployed as of those in the indigenous population. This is also the case in council housing, where it has been established that a large number of the immigrant population are living in the worst areas of council estates in many parts of the country.
There are a number of aspects to be considered. There is the problem of promotion, because immigrants may not be given adequate opportunity to improve themselves in accordance with their abilities. If they are able to do so, obviously they will have more opportunities for job promotion available to them. There is a whole range of matters on which these considerations are important, and we need to know the details.
I do not wholeheartedly support New Clause 1 because of the dangers it contains, but I support the idea of the establishment of machinery so that if the Government, public opinion, or even the immigrant community, feel that injustices are being done on account of colour or origin, there might be a way to check the situation.
I very much regret the tone of the remarks made by the hon. and learned Member for Beaconsfield and the right hon. Member for Down, South, who obviously do not consider objectively the needs of the host community or the immigrants. They obviously show prejudice on this occasion as they have done on other matters in the past.

Mr. Cyril Smith: I cannot follow the hon. Lady's logic. The clause does not require the local authority to monitor the matter, or the Department of Education and Science, or the Department of Employment. The clause requires individual employers to monitor, for example, how many coloured persons they have working for them. Will that information in any way add to the statistics available to a local housing department in seeking to provide accommodation?

Mr. Willey: If the hon. Gentleman examines the Bill he will appreciate that this matter is expressly related to Clauses 48, 49 and 50. That is the reason why the new clause is in this form. Those clauses provide that the commission can compel formal investigation.

Mrs. Miller: There is another area in which discrimination is being carried out, and it has already been referred to in another debate this week. I refer to the subject of immigration itself. I very much regret that, because of other duties, I was not able to be present during that debate, but it was obviously accepted that in the

present situation immigration is a free-for-all. There is serious discrimination against those who come from Asian countries compared with those who come here from what is known as the Old Commonwealth. Therefore, if there is to be monitoring of any kind, I believe that these considerations should be borne in mind.

Mr. Ivor Stanbrook: Along with some previous contributors to this discussion, I am no friend of this legislation or of the new clause. In discussing the subject of race relations we should not forget that we are talking about human relations—in other words, about what fundamentally are the relations between one person and another. The only damage to race relations lies in treating people as groups, as corporate entities or institutions specially susceptible to legislation. Surely legislation should permit people to live their own lives without interference, to develop in their own way and as far as possible to solve their own problems.
It is part of the philosophy of Conservatism to have the maximum amount of freedom consistent with the minimum amount of State control. It is even possible that some Labour Members will agree with that view. It is only a question of where we set the limits. If we accept that view, why do so many of us come into this House thinking that it is our duty to heap burdens on our fellow citizens? That is what we spend so much of our time doing. This clause is a typical example of that philosophy.
The clause can be looked at from two standpoints. The first relates to statistics, and the second relates to interference with the way in which people live their lives. We must closely examine the statistical argument. The more we heap burdens on employers and institutions to keep records the more will the proponents of these measures say "We have so much information—we now want more." In other words, a few more questions are then added to the questionnaire; the form will contain a few more boxes to take all the ticks and crosses. At present there are a record number of questionnaires and forms that must be filled in by business. They occupy companies to a great degree and interfere with their capacity to promote the prosperity we all desire. Yet


here we are facing another clause that will put a further burden on private business.
It is not just on those grounds that I oppose the clause. I object to the sheer undesirability of distinguishing between Her Majesty's subjects. If we want a fully integrated society, at ease and at peace with itself, whose citizens are happy and get on well with one another, the less we say about the divisions that separate us the better. When relations are difficult and politics are sensitive, that is all the more reason not to inquire into the ethnic, national or racial characteristics of those concerned.
I believe that it has been a very good move recently by the media, in commenting on events in Northern Ireland, to cease publishing whether the victims of sectarian violence are Catholic or Protestant. For example, publicity given when a Catholic is killed is likely to stimulate his fellow Catholics into some form of revenge, and the reverse situation applies when a Protestant is killed. Such events should simply be referred to as incidents involving Her Majesty's subjects, whatever the motive behind the killing.
However, in this clause the right hon. Member for Sunderland, North (Mr. Willey) is attempting to distinguish between people, to stir up trouble, hostility, distinction and differences where none should exist—and, indeed, where none will exist as time elapses, because of the natural growth in society. If these provisions are accepted, there will be the most detailed and prolific output of definitions, and no doubt subsidiary legislation will flow from the Minister. We shall have strict definitions of colour and we shall face the kind of problem that is experienced in South Africa and the United States where people attempt to pass as white. Definitions will have to be laid down as to whether in those circumstances such a person should be considered white. That type of legislation is odious and we do not want to see it in this country. We do not want to import that kind of legislation into the United Kingdom
5.30 p.m.
It seems to me that the spirit behind this new clause is utterly and fundamentally irreconcilable with a free country. The only society in which it would work

without conflict, and with the benefits claimed for it, is a Socialist society. In other words, it would work only in a society controlled, regulated, conditioned, disciplined, and, ultimately, servile.

The Clerk at the Table informed the House of the absence of MR. SPEAKER from the remainder of this day's Sitting pursuant to the leave of the House given yesterday.

Mrs. Jill Knight: I was absolutely horrified when I read New Clause 1. It soars to new heights of idiocy, even for this Government, which is saying something. The right hon. Member for Down, South (Mr. Powell) highlighted fairly and accurately the ludicrous position into which the House will plunge employers and the law if the new clause is embodied in the Bill.
At the moment, under the present law, we tell employers that on no account are they to advertise for an employee in any paper or magazine on the basis of race, nationality or ethnic origin. It is illegal even to ask a Scottish person to make porridge. That is regarded as very wicked indeed. Despite this, the new clause requires that the full details of race, nationality and origin shall be written down. This seems absolutely ludicrous.
I object to the idea that anyone who is Jewish, for example, shall have this fact put down on his records. That brings back echoes of the 1930s. It is utterly wrong to lay down, in a book of statistics, facts such as people's race or ethnic origin. It will be deeply offensive to many people outside the House if they are forced by law to do this.
Presumably all employers of more than 25 persons must be ready at any time to produce the statistics asked for in the new clause. This will come as a horrible shock to many employers, on administrative grounds alone. I sometimes wonder whether the Government have any idea about the way they cramp the abilities of small and medium-sized businesses by requiring them to fulfil all the existing demands for statistics. Frequently I receive complaints from small and medium businesses in Birmingham about the immense amount of statistical information that they have to produce for the Government. To be asked to do this


on top of everything else will be quite appalling for them.
Who is going to pay for it all? Do the Government think that answers to questionnaires of this kind fall down out of the sky? They have to be worked at very hard, and some firms actually have to employ a clerk to work full time on providing the statistics that the Government demand at present.
I tremble to think what will happen in large businesses and the nationalised industries. What will happen if British Leyland, for example, is asked next Tuesday morning to produce all the statistics on the thousands of people who work for it—statistics about their race, origins and nationality.
I beg the Government to appreciate the magnitude of this task. It will not be a cheap operation, because it will need an army of people to go to every working person in the factory and ask him or her to supply details of race, colour, and so on. The administrative cost will be absolutely enormous.

Mr. Norman Tebbit: Has my hon. Friend considered the case in which there is a dispute between a man and his employer over what colour he is? For instance, what colour is an Anglo-Indian? Also, what will happen if a black man wants to say that he is white, or a white man wants to say that he is black? Will there be a law to prevent this?

Mrs. Knight: I was coming to that. Who will be culpable if the information supplied is wrong? Will the employer be culpable? Such classification as exists in South Africa has brought about a tragic situation, because many people try to pass themselves off as being of different racial origin from what they are in reality.

Mr. Nick Budgen: Has my hon. Friend thought about the difficulty that will arise if there is a dispute between an employer and an employee about the colour of the employee?

Mrs. Knight: Yes. I can see this leading to enormous difficulties. I cannot believe that the Government have considered the matter properly.

The Under-Secretary of State for Employment (Mr. John Grant): I have restrained myself so far, but I can do so no longer. The hon. Lady has accused the Government of idiocy, but this is not a Government clause. It has been put forward by my right hon. Friend the Member for Sunderland, North (Mr. Willey), and I would acquit him of idiocy, as I am sure would all members of this House. But I must emphasise that this is not a Government clause.

Mrs. Knight: The Minister will have to recognise that this sort of thing is implicit in the Bill. Is it the Government's intention to vote against the new clause?

Mr. John Grant: I shall answer that as soon as I am allowed to speak, and the sooner the better.

Mrs. Knight: Certainly, I hope that the Minister will speak soon, as some of us would like to know the answer. However, it might be a good idea if I used up a few minutes in pointing out—

Mr. John Grant: We are resisting the new clause. Perhaps that will assist the hon. Lady to abbreviate her remarks.

Mrs. Knight: Indeed, it will. I am very glad to hear what the Minister has to say. I assume that there will be no vote on the clause because, for all the reasons that my hon. and right hon. Friends have advanced, it would be utterly wrong, totally absurd, quite unjust and hopelessly expensive to have this new clause in the Bill.

Mr. Michael Alison: The right hon. Member for Sunderland, North (Mr. Willey) has been rather in the dock this afternoon, judging by the speeches in all parts of the House, culminating in the rebuff from the Minister.

Mr. John Grant: It was not a rebuff.

Mr. Alison: It may not have been a rebuff, but there was a reference to the fact that the hon. Gentleman's brief says "Resist".

Mr. Ronald Bell: The Minister has acquitted his right hon. Friend of idiocy but he has gone no further than that.

Mr. Alison: Maybe the Minister will have the opportunity to do this presently.
Although we had some fruitful collaboration with the right hon. Member for Sunderland, North in Committee, we cannot support his clause today. Apart from the escalating scale of objections we have had already in this debate, there is the fact that there are provisions in Clause 50 of the Bill, as it stands, which enable the commission to require an employer or another person to furnish much of the information required by the new clause. Clause 50 seems to be a much more flexible and lower-key provision to secure what the new clause wants to secure on a much wider canvas. We believe that the power is there already for much of the information which is sought, leaving aside the merits of that information.
The Government were quite clear in the White Paper, and I think that they were right, in respect of monitoring Government contracts and applying the contractual requirements arising from the 1968 Act. Paragraph 20 of the White Paper said:
It would be an unacceptable burden to require all contractors to supply as a matter of form full particulars on their employment polices".
It seems to me a fortiori an impossible burden—and I take the point raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Edgbaston (Mrs. Knight) in this respect—that, apart from just employment policies, employers should have to provide details of employees as required under the new clause.
My final reasons for opposing the clause relate to the broader grounds adduced by a number of my hon. Friends. I take the point made by the right hon. Member for Down, South (Mr. Powell) about some of the hidden tensions which sometimes arise when certain kinds of information are deliberately elicited. I fear that in some firms, particularly with a higher level of employment of certain kinds of Asian worker—we debated the Walsall circumstances in Committee—in which refinements of recruitment, even down to taking workers from particular villages in India, are a common practice—

Mr. Willey: The discussion is now in the right context. We are dealing with a Bill which provides for the power to compel a formal investigation. It gives

the commission wide powers to compel the provision of information, but the employer may not have the information which would soon decide the issue. He may say that he does not keep records. Unless we make a provision such as the one I am proposing we shall encourage the commission to have a formal investigation. I am proposing simply that where the employer does not know the necessary facts because he does not keep records, he will be required to keep those records for a period so that the position may be determined.

Mr. Alison: I still feel that, with the kind of information which might float up in a stark and explicit form, however it may be required and in whatever circumstances, real tensions may be created between different sub-groups of Asian immigrants. When a particular firm has a policy of recruitment from one part of Asia, other immigrants do not get a look in. This is the parallel of the religious point mentioned by the right hon. Member for Down, South, who referred to the undesirable effect of having a religious balance too clearly shown. Like him, I am not too sure that we are not treading on dangerous ground here.
This is an area in which I have profound misgivings about some of the strategic functions of the commission. It is implied that at the back of the right hon. Gentleman's mind is the feeling that a racial balance is appropriate.
But the Government explicitly sought to remove by this Bill the racial balance provisions of the 1968 Act. We are searching here for the photographic still of an employment situation which will enable the commission in its strategic rôle to say that there are too many black people or too many white people in a particular firm. I do not think that the racial balance provision is self-evidently a useful basis for the commmission's inquiry. We debated this issue in Committee. It may he better for the immigrant groups to be left alone to work in high concentrations of their fellow immigrants, even though this may not be best for ultimate integration.
We have heard from a number of hon. Members today that the new clause may not be necessary, but if we accepted it I believe it would have undesirable implications, and I should, therefore, want to vote against it.

5.45 p.m.

Mr. John Grant: I have dealt with the charge of idiocy levelled against the Government—a charge which I do not think can ever be sustained anyway. I wish to add that although we are resisting the clause, it is unfortunate that that adjective should have been used about it, since it does a disservice to the House and ignores the effort that my right hon. Friend the Member for Sunderland, North (Mr. Willey) has exerted in trying to improve race relations as Chairman of the Select Committee on Race Relations.
Having heard some speeches from the Opposition Benches I begin to wonder whether the Government are right to resist the clause. We shall do so, however, and I shall explain why. Whenever I find support for the Government from the right hon. Member for Down, South (Mr. Powell) I tend to think that we are being offered the kiss of death. He admitted fairly frankly at the end of his remarks that he was tantamount to being an imposter at this stage, because his remarks were really directed to the legislation generally. I do not, of course, suggest that it was invalid of him to intervene—

Mr. Powell: Why is it to be an imposter to oppose a part of a Bill because one opposes the whole of a Bill, or to oppose a new clause that would extend a Bill when one objects to the principle of the Bill? Surely that is not to be an imposter.

Mr. Grant: I am sorry that the right hon. Gentleman is so sensitive about language. I have not always noticed him to be so. Of course, his remarks on the clause were supported by other hon. Members. However, in his general remarks about the legislation I think that he will find himself in a very small minority in the House.
Perhaps I may now deal with the clause in detail. Subsection (5) raises a matter that we discussed in Committee, and in that respect the Government's view remains as it was. It was made clear at that time by my hon. Friend the Minister of State—who I do not think has ever been described as "lofty"—that it is important that there should be a solid foundation of reliable fact upon which to base policies, to make perfectly

clear what is or is not being done in any given area, so that we may judge the effect of practices. It is important that the Government and public bodies generally should be seen to be operating effectively on the question of equal opportunities and should be able to justify or modify practices in the light of factual information that will be provided by record keeping.

Mr. Ronald Bell: Will the Under-Secretary analyse what he just said? He will realise that the main attack that I made on the new clause—it is one that I have made in other contexts of the legislation—is that it seems to be based on a numerical approach? What the Minister said seems to be based on a numerical approach, for what do records show except numbers?

Mr. Grant: If the hon. and learned Gentleman will allow me to develop my case I think that I shall answer his point.
It is not a simple matter to devise records of this type. As was said in Committee, some forms may irritate and others may give offence. We would all agree that a great deal of care and thought must go into them. At this stage we do not think that my right hon. Friend's proposition has been sufficiently thought through, and we believe that it needs a great deal more care and attention.
I turn now to the question of employment, where we feel that the keeping of records is a matter that would normally need to be discussed between management and unions. After all, the records are about employees and the information may be used to affect the rights of individuals. I appreciate my right hon. Friend's concern in this matter. The information that he seeks may well help to remove discrimination and to promote equal opportunity, but these uses of the information should be recognised and agreed by all those people who are involved at the place of work. The hon. Member for Cambridge (Mr. Lane) mentioned trade union hesitation in this respect, and he was right to do so. When the TUC gave evidence to the Select Committee it expressed misgivings about this kind of record keeping, which it felt could be unhelpfully discriminatory. There are minority groups, apart from coloured


people, who may resent being singled out. This is a delicate area upon which we are trespassing.
The hon. Member for Barkston Ash (Mr. Alison) rightly drew attention to Clause 50, which makes it clear that if a formal investigation throws up the need for recommendations to be made, either to an individual or to the Secretary of State, the commission can make any recommendations that it thinks appropriate. It can make recommendations whether or not it has undertaken a formal investigation.
The commission's general powers are sufficient to allow it to make recommendations on any subject and to publish them in its annual report. Clearly, record keeping could be the subject of recommendations if the commission thought it appropriate. This is a matter which I hope the commission will look at, but it would be wrong to require it to do so and to single out this part of its work.
In Committee we discussed the credibility of the commission and whether it would be right to leave it to decide for itself where its priorities will lie within the general framework of the Act. We have given it powers to tackle the general problems underlying this proposal. We should be hindering the commission and hampering its effectiveness if we tried to lay down too firmly the use it should make of those powers.
Similar considerations apply to the main proposal in New Clause 1. The keeping and maintaining of records is an area in which it is sensible to proceed with caution, and we believe that the new clause is unnecessary and, in some measure, undesirable.
The new clause is unnecessary because the commission already has power, under Clause 50, to obtain information that is needed for an investigation if it has been authorised by the Secretary of State or if the investigation's terms of reference state that the commission believes that a person named in them has discriminated unlawfully. However, it would be wrong to give the Secretary of State power of intervention in the working of individual companies when there are no criteria to judge how that power should be used, and

when the effect of its use could be both unjustifiably burdensome and doubtful in value.
The new clause would effectively take away from the commission the responsibility for deciding what information should be collected and how it should be collected. It would be better if the commission were allowed to conduct its business in the way it thinks fit.
I have said that record keeping could be considered by the commission. It might also be considered by the standing advisory council set up by my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary. I hope that, in the light of what I have said, my right hon. Friend will not wish to press the new clause.

Mr. Wiley: The sooner I resume meaningful discussions with my pair, the better we shall proceed.
I appreciate what the Minister has said. There is no difference between us and the hon. Member for Cambridge (Mr. Lane) in the view that the object of the debate has been to consider whether it would be helpful to take the steps proposed in the new clause.
Most of the misapprehensions voiced about the new clause came from hon. Members who had not read the Bill. My proposal has to be seen in the context of the powers that the commission already has. It was because I was sensitive to the difficulties that I did not suggest a general statement of standards. But would it not be prudent to have these powers in reserve, for use when appropriate?
I fully accept the delicacy of this subject and the need for the fullest cooperation from management and trade unions. I realise how much more effective the legislation will be if we get that co-operation.
I do not wish to enforce unnecessary bureaucracy or record keeping, but if there are powers for the commission to undertake formal investigations and to compel the provision of information, we should consider whether the provisions in the new clause would be appropriate in this context.
Comparability is a persuasive argument, and records may or may not be helpful in certain industries. However, I am prepared to leave the matter in the hands of the Government.
I beg to ask leave to withdraw the motion.

Motion and clause, by leave, withdrawn.

New Clause 2

REPORT ON RESOURCES

Without prejudice to its obligation to comply with any other provision of this Act, it shall be the duty of the Commission to study and assess the extent to which the securing of the objectives specified in section 43(1)(a) and (b) is hindered or delayed by shortage of financial or other relevant resources, and to report accordingly, with recommendations, in the annual report, or, if it deems it necessary as a matter of urgency, directly to the Secretary of State.—[Mr. Alison.]

Brought up, and read the First time.

Mr. Alison: I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.
The purpose of the new clause is to give us the opportunity to continue our debate on the Bill, which upgrades the 1968 Act, and to talk about deprivation and the necessary resources or material background for an effective race relations policy in this country.
A stable basis for good race relations depends on firm support from at least three angles—the three legs of a stool. First, there must be strict limits on the number of immigrants accepted into this country. It was generally agreed in our debate on Monday that such limits are necessary as the background to an effective race relations policy for immigrants who are already here.
Secondly, I accept that there should be a fair and enforceable framework of law.
Thirdly, a framework of law or a strict limitation on immigration will be ineffective in dealing with the kind of tensions and outbreaks of violence beginning to appear in this country unless there is some consideration, thought and policy propounded deliberately on financial and all other economic and material resources.
The new clause seeks to highlight this dimension of the problem alongside the various duties and objectives of the commission, and we hope the Government will include the new clause, or something like it, in the Bill.
It would be a profound paradox if the Government, who changed the name of

the commission from the Race Relations Commission to the Commission for Racial Equality, should insist on evacuating from it any connotation of equality which had material, economic or resource implications and left it with only the cold, sterile connotation of mere legality.
The pursuit of the sort of equality which is implied by the commission's new title will merely reinforce the cynicism which many immigrants, believing they are deprived and at a considerable disadvantage compared with other members of the community, have felt since the 1968 Act. This cynicism will be promoted if we do not recognise that the mere repetition of the 1968 legislation with minor refinements must be accompanied by a deliberate and conscious programme for improving the deprived areas of our inner cities and deliberately giving priority in public expenditure to improving our inner city areas. In these areas we have mixed white and immigrant problems of low educational provision, poor housing, rundown social services, overstretched resources and a crying need in this vacuum not for new statutes, but for provision in real resource terms.
That is what we want the commission to have a power, under the new clause, to be able to do. We want the commission not just to look at breaches or potential breaches of the statute but positively to have a duty to introduce, in its consideration of particular problems and its investigations, its strategic rôle, where, in making progress in good race relations, there is an insuperable obstacle of a lack of specific resources in specific localities. We want the commission to be able to record this in its annual report. We want it to have a duty or a power to go specifically to the Secretary of State in emergency to bring to his notice the resource problem.
6.0 p.m.
Let me touch on some of the resource dimensions of the case that we are arguing. First, under the broad heading of urban deprivation and housing, I refer the Minister of State to the White Paper. He will not need any reminding about this because we had some debates about it in Committee, but he will remember the trenchant criticism made in the White Paper about housing particularly:
An excessively high proportion of coloured people live in the relatively more


deprived inner city areas…areas of housing stress are disproportionately coloured. Coloured people…are significantly underrepresented in the council housing sector.
The lead having been given in a White Paper entitled "Race Relations", it is surely right that the theme should be continued in the annual reports of the new Commission for Racial Equality. It should have regard to this important dimension in its reports, and in its references about its task to the Secretary of State.
It would be an extraordinary irony if the new commission should have the power to investigate a situation in which allegedly there were too many Asiatic workers engaged in a particular shift in the foundry industry in a firm in Walsall —good luck to them on having got in on the shift and the job—but should be disbarred from commenting on the availability of council housing for immigrants, on the difficulties that they may be encountering in securing housing improvement grants if they are Asians with a high concentration of owner-occupation, on the difficulty of providing adult language training facilities, on the absence of housing advisory centres, or too little being spent on the urban programme in general. It is vital, with these sorts of dimensions, that the problem should form an important part of the investigation of the commission, and not just the statutory or legal discriminations which are dealt with in the Bill.
Unemployment is the second heading to which I draw the Minister of State's attention. From the 1971 census onwards it has clearly been established that coloured immigrant workers suffer disproportionately from unemployment. Within this category young West Indians suffer more than disproportionately. They suffer from unemployment with exceptional severity. I should like to give a few random statistics which have appeared fairly recently. In the 18-month period up to May last year—these are the latest figures that I have been able to collect—coloured unemployment rose by 156 per cent. as compared with a 65 per cent. rise in the rate of increase in unemployment for the population as a whole. That is nearly, but not quite, three times the rate of increase. For

young West Indians the rate of increase was up by 182 per cent.
These are staggering figures. They lie right at the base of any of the problems with which we are trying to grapple —local tensions, outbreaks of violence, clashes with the police, allegations of law breaking, and so on. There is very little opportunity for the young West Indian unemployed school leaver to get anything done about it. He is too young, being below the age of 19, to qualify for the Training Opportunities Scheme. In any case, tests of literacy and numeracy are applied, so he would be very unlikely to get in on one of the TOPS schemes.
It was with a note of irony that the Select Committee on Race Relations reported as long ago as December 1973;
Some applicants for vocational training who are otherwise suitable and eligible have however been unable to start courses because they were unable to reach the required standard of literacy or numeracy.
These are the essential hidden features of the kinds of problems that we are facing in racial tension at present.
If anyone has any doubt about that he has only to look at the report of what was said only last week by Dr. Briault, the Chief Education Officer for the Greater London Council, when he addressed the British Association for Commercial and Industrial Education. Some of his words were almost unbelievable in the context of the sensitivity that we have now acquired in speaking about these issues. He pointed out that a large number of the Inner London Education Authority school leavers had to have special instruction because they could neither read nor write, nor do simple sums—having left secondary school! He went on to say, according to the report in the Daily Telegraph of 7th July, that the unskilled, unqualified and unemployed were
a danger to the community. Many of them are coloured and those who wish to stress the racial differences in our society exploit this. In the school and on the street there are occasional incidents of this kind.
That was referring to incidents of violence.
The Daily Telegraph reporter says:
Later he told me that the fact that the least able members of the community had no jobs presented a very real danger. Nearly one half of the jobless"—


in this context, I imagine he meant young school leavers—
were coloured.
That is the sort of reality of race relations that entirely bypasses the kind of provision that we are discussing in the Bill. Anything that we try to do in the Bill, all the declaratory, high-sounding phrases of good intent which are drafted and postulated in this legislation, against the background of high immigrant unemployment, and particularly against the background of literacy and numeracy among the young, is spitting into the wind —to put it crudely. It is entirely counterproductive, because it produces a cynicism that legislation does no good, although it is high sounding. It makes it doubtful whether we are doing more good than harm.
However, the Government could at least recognise this dimension of resources by making it a fundamental obligatory duty of the commission to major on this and to discover where a rational concentration of resources in public expenditure terms could most usefully and productively be made. If necessary, the commission would have to go to the Secretary of State, asking urgently for special help in this field.
One could continue highlighting areas in which resources are needed. I have touched on education. It is clear that the social services departments in areas of high immigrant concentration are under great pressure. not least because many West Indian mothers go out to work not just part-time but whole-time, leaving many West Indian children alone for long periods, a situation that produces educational disadvantage before they even go to school, because of a lack of communication and the ordinary interplay and stimulus that come from home life and mixing with children of the same age.
In this context, surely there should be some consideration of more resources being applied, perhaps in more playgroups or social workers, or whatever the case may be. At least the commission should major on this aspect. That is what we seek to provide for in the new clause. Part of the problem is that the Government are acting in the worst possible way. They are promoting legislation with assiduity and a fanfare of

trumpets, but on the argument which I am deploying, and which is so fundamental as a complement to the legislation, they seem to be backpedalling.
I had another careful look today at the article which was written, on 26th February last, by Peter Evans, the home affairs correspondent of The Times, in which he drew attention to the dramatic decline in the budgetary provisions in the Public Expenditure White Paper for community services—the whole range of services provided under the Home Office Vote, including law, order and the protective services and the urban aid programme. I looked again at the sharp decline from the figures for the last full year of expenditure, which was 1975–76. The proposed capital expenditure is £7·1 million in that year, but by the end of the quinquenium the decline will have been sevenfold. The figure is down to exactly £1 million. There is, therefore, in prospect a dramatic rundown of real resources for the community services.

Mrs. Renée Short: I have listened with great interest to the case put forward by the hon. Member for Barkston Ash (Mr. Alison), and I agree with everything he has said. I endorse what he has said about shortages in the inner city areas. The logical conclusion from what he has said is that there must be greatly increased public expenditure on all the social services. How does that fit in with what the Opposition say day after day, and many times a day, about the need to cut public expenditure?

Mr. Alison: The hon. Lady, as an experienced debater, cannot believe that that thought had not occurred to me. It is an old saying that the language of priorities is the religion of Socialism. I shall not bore the hon. Lady by giving a list of the cuts which I could propose on any day of the week. I shall simply refer her to the article written by Peter Jay in The Times at the end of May in which he proposed ways of cutting public expenditure up to the end of 1976 by £3,000 million.
Two areas in which he thought changes might be made were a modest 15 per cent. cut across the board in nationalised industries' capital investment and the abolition of motorway construction, saving £150 million. Does the hon. Lady agree


with me that it would be well worth ending motorway construction if the money thus saved, even on a modest scale, were diverted to the urban programme? Peter Jay also suggested stopping local authority road building and improvement, and I back that proposal. When I drive round my rural constituency I notice how much work is being done on straightening out corners on twisty little roads, and I realise how much is being spent on that. Does not the hon. Lady agree that that is where public expenditure could be cut and resources reallocated? I could go on indefinitely. If we are talking about priorities I could suggest a huge list of projects in which there could be a massive overall cut to allow a modest redeployment of smaller net totals to certain crucial services.
We think that the commission should have power to advise the Minister on urgent priorities, over and above what is provided in the Bill, in areas of stress and tension. Let the Minister of State accept the principle that resources are crucial. Let there be written into the duties of the commission the duty to weigh and report on this dimension. Then there will be added to the Bill a sense of reality which is seriously lacking without the provisions we advocated.

6.15 p.m.

Mr. Powell: Once again, a new clause placed before the House has opened a deep perspective into the subject matter of the Bill. It is to that perspective that I want primarily to direct my criticism of the clause. Apart from perspective, by its nature the clause is an impracticable provision. It calls upon the commission to study and assess the extent to which shortage of financial or other relevant resources is involved, and to report accordingly.
It is impracticable to suppose that year by year, presumably district by district and area by area, the commission could usefully set out a list of additional resources required under a series of headings. We could all compile such lists, but the commission is asked to compile lists and quantify the items in so far as they are hindering or delaying the achievement of the objectives specified in Clause 43. That is an impracticable directive to place upon the commission and/or to write into a statute.
Even if I agreed with the philosophy behind it, as I do not, I would still think

that the assessment of resources and the budgeting should not be separated by entrusting the determination of certain magnitudes to the commission in the context of the Bill, when clearly they are part of the general budgeting for the social services, urban renewal, and so forth, in the country at large. In practical terms the new clause is defective; but my chief objection and my main observation do not turn upon that.
The clause is an example of one of the most prevalent and damaging fallacies in this whole subject—the fallacy of supposing that the consequences that are apprehended from the massive substitution, in various parts of the country, for the indigenous population of a population from overseas are either due to what is called physical deprivation, poverty, and so on, or can be in any way alleviated, avoided or foreclosed by material provision.
That is a fallacy, but it is worse than a fallacy. It is not merely inert or neutral in its effect; it is not merely that the prescription is irrelevant and mistaken. It is positively dangerous in that, as I shall presently argue, it is a means whereby people can persuade themselves for year after year that the difficulties and dangers are less fundamental and will yield to less fundamental action than the reality requires.
It is by no means true that the areas of maximum New Commonwealth immigrant entry—the locations of what Lord Radcliffe many years ago called 'the alien wedge"—are characteristically or specifically coincident with the areas of greatest poverty and desuetude in our cities. In some cases the two coincide. Sometimes, naturally, this happens in the central and rundown areas—run down because they are central—that because they are central it is in those areas that major immigrant populations are found.
When I reflect upon that transformation—I shall not say unwished, but unimagined—which took place over a quarter of a century in the town in Staffordshire of which I represented one part, it is not primarily of the relatively restricted rundown central areas that I think. I think of the streets of middle-class and lower middle-class occupation, the long streets of 1880, 1890 and 1900 housing which, during those two decades, ceased to be occupied by the indigenous


population and were occupied and, broadly speaking, just as well maintained —or just as ill maintained—by the newcomers.
It would be a mistake to suppose that, even in the crudest and most obvious sense, there is a coincidence between immigrant occupation and what is called urban deprivation. But that is only a qualification. The central point is that the dangers which all apprehend from that thing which has happened to this country in the last generation are not caused by material deprivation and cannot be removed by ending it. To believe that they can is a modern version, a special form, of the old, oft-exploded fallacy that there is a correlation between crime and poverty, between crime and bad housing, between crime and congestion.
Over and over again this easy illusion has been propounded, and as often experience has disposed of it. It is not because people are poor, to the extent that they are poor, and it is not because they live in the streets of the inner cities, in which the indigenous population of this country has lived—gradually improving, and in some cases rapidly improving over generations—that we apprehend what will be the consequence when one-third of some of the major cities and industrial areas of our country is in New Commonwealth occupation. It is because of human differences. It is because of the clash and contrast between two populations which contend for the same territory.
To make them richer, to shower upon them money and resources drawn from the general taxpayer, will not diminish—indeed, I can imagine circumstances in which it would enhance—the latent and inherent antagonism. It is a fallacy, therefore, to link as cause and effect what is in modern parlance called, very dangerously, deprivation with the dangers of the large and growing alien wedge—if I may use that judicial expression again—in this country.
But there is a positive harm which we do by the notion that programmes of urban renewal are, as both Front Benches have for many years so eagerly proclaimed, the real key to what they call the problem of race relations. The harm is that it provides people with something to say, with something to think, which

will shield them from having to face the reality, which will shield them from having to face the true nature of the dangers, and the heroic dimensions of what is necessary if those dangers are not to become realities.

Mr. Lane: Mr. Lanerose—

Mr. Powell: Yes, it is time, I think, for the hon. Member for Cambridge (Mr. Lane) to interrupt me.

Mr. Lane: I am very grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for giving way. I am following him very carefully. He is just coming to the very point of saying what is necessary to deal with the situation that he is describing. He always comes up to this point and sheers away from the logic of what he is saying. I hope very much that he will go a little further.

Mr. Powell: The hon. Member is much mistaken if he thinks that I sheer away from the logic of what I am saying. Over and over again, year after year—I have books here in which it may be read; reprints of my speeches—I have said that unless the prospective New Commonwealth population is dramatically reduced there is no escape from these dangers.

Mr. Lane: How?

Mr. Powell: I have said that. Just because the hon. Member does not like it, he must not brush it aside and think that taxpayers' money will buy his way out. We shall not buy our way out of what we have entailed upon this country by our past follies. We shall not spend our way out of it. Unless there is a dramatic change in the future projections, there is nothing else but massive repatriation. This is not the first time that I have used that word—

Mr. Lane: The right hon. Gentleman has never told us how.

Mr. Powell: —even if the hon. Member has not heard it. Even if it were impracticable, it would still not make other measures therefore practicable. It is simply superstition to say that because we do not like, or even because we find impracticable, the only method which will banish a danger, therefore we will assume that other methods which are inadequate or incapable of banishing it


will do so. That is the mood of self-deception in which—

Mr. Sydney Bidwell: Mr. Sydney Bidwell (Ealing, Southall) rose—

Mr. Powell: I shall give way to the hon. Member later.

Mr. Bidwell: Mr. Bidwell rose—

Mr. Powell: I always have this difficulty. I intend to oblige the hon. Member several times in the course of the evening, and I shall welcome his assistance. But, of course, my difficulty with the hon. Member and his interventions is that I have heard them some 143 times, and it is always hard to know whether it is fair to deprive other hon. Members, who may only have heard him 30 or 40 times, from hearing him again.

Mr. Bidwell: Mr. Bidwell rose—

Mr. Powell: At any rate for the present, my decision is that I will not give way to the hon. Member at this stage. I shall give way to him later on, in my own good time. I shall give way several times, as I have often done before over the years.
I return to my statement that year after year we have allowed ourselves to be told that money, the expenditure of resources, the building of houses, the improvement of cities, will avert the consequences of the massive substitution of one population for another. It will not. Year by year as that massive substitution became more massive, year by year as the materials of the future increase were accumulated, we have been able—or, rather, the respectable have been able —to set it on one side by saying "It will be all right provided we spend a lot more money."
It was a long time ago, in January 1970, that, after demonstrating what was the size and potential of the alien wedge, I went on to say that we did positive harm by these programmes—not because in themselves they were open to objection. It is a matter for quite separate debate whether, as the hon. Member for Barkston Ash (Mr. Alison) seemed to believe, one can in fact provide net additional employment for a particular section of the population by additional expenditure of public money. That is something which can be debated

in another context. If it is true in Wolver-hampton and Bradford, we can apply the same method in other places. That is a large debate, but it is not a debate that belongs here.
It may well be that we ought to be spending relatively more upon demolishing and rebuilding the centres of our cities, but that also is a separate debate. What we must not do is allow ourselves to suppose that we have a kind of talisman, in the form of public expenditure, which will make different the human beings who will be contending for the occupation of this territory.
6.30 p.m.
Another respect in which this materialistic approach is highly unfavourable is that it enables those who are disposed to violence, who are disposed to hurrying on the onset of a major physical clash, to find an excuse and a motivation for their actions. It is not correct to say that the violence takes place because those who perpetrate it are poor and deprived, because they have no amusement in the evenings or because they live in overcrowded houses or in the decaying centres of towns. That is not so.
The causes of this antagonism, and the cause of the violence which is rising, do not lie there any more than the cause of crime in the past lay in physical or social deprivation. But when both sides preach the gospel, in debates such as on this new clause, that we must spend more money upon those who are deprived in those areas otherwise we shall be faced with their violence, not only do we place in their hands a very dangerous weapon. an instrument of blackmail, whereby they say "Spend more or there will be more violence"—that is something which is very familiar in various parts of the country where this problem exists—but it provides an excuse to them, an excuse in the face of society, a palliative of what is happening, in that they can say "How can you blame us for the conflict when you are not spending enough upon the environment in which we live?"
I protest, as over the years I have protested, against the false, materialistic, fallacious, dangerous philosophy which underlies the linking of a new clause of this sort with racial problems and the desirability or otherwise of expending sums of public money in the areas of


immigrant occupation. The new clause is the first occasion—and it is probably not the last—in this Report stage when that profound danger has been opened up. If there is an opportunity later to reject the new clause, I shall join in rejecting it.

Mr. Bidwell: I did not intend to come in at this particular juncture, but as the right hon. Member for Down, South (Mr. Powell) would not give way to me I feel that I need to do so.
The right hon. Gentleman has not explained correctly the historical circumstances for the coming into this country of considerable numbers of workers from the New Commonwealth, which spreads over a considerable area of the world. He has not explained what makes those newcomers different kinds of people according to the different countries from which they came. A considerable weakness in his argument is that he tends to blanket them all as one race. He also does not take account of factors which arise from employer recruitment policies, which I suppose he thought I was going to repeat, and his own rôle in that, from which he can never escape.
The fact is that black people are likely to have black babies, and many of the black babies who caw here in the right hon. Gentleman's time are now having black babies of their own. The right hon. Gentleman must accept responsibility as an employer, with the rest of the employers, for the fact that where these people live is attendant upon economic factors.
I entirely reject the right hon. Gentleman's supposition that crime has nothing to do with social deprivation. Many aspects of crime have little to do with social lawyers and social levels. But other aspects of crime emanate from certain economic situations. Certainly, crime could derive from the situation in which we place young black people who are unemployed. However, the right hon. Gentleman overlooks the fact, as he did in a previous contribution, that the police have testified that those of Asian origin are more law-abiding than the rest of us. When one looks at the regions and centres of concentration of those people, one must not rule out consideration of how it all came about. We are not likely to

arrive at the right conclusions if we do not correctly assess that.
In his melodramatic statements, the right hon. Member for Down, South usually gets it wrong. He puts two and two together and makes four and a half. That is the system of logic he seems to employ. However, I found myself agreeing with some of his remarks and I wanted to intervene in order to help his mental processes. [An HON. MEMBER: "Impossible."] Someone says "Impossible". I disagree. I have great respect for the right hon. Gentleman's intellect. I only hope that he will rethink the situation, because he got himself into a bit of a bog in recent years when he decided to step out on this path in 1968 and tell the public that he had a particular anxiety about the problem.
We brought in workers, and all of us in Britain share a responsibility. They came at a time when there was brimful employment. They went to certain areas to do jobs that white workers did not wish to do. The reality of the social concentration situation is that they lived where they got employment. That is the explanation for the West Indian population living in Brixton, South London. Why are they in Southall? The explanation lies in employment patterns, in active recruitment abroad, in which the right hon. Member for Down, South had a part to play, and in our acceptance that we have to honour family and social responsibilities.
The only factor which the right hon. Gentleman seems to leave out of account is that those people who came to this country were roughly all of the same age group. They were people, mainly males at first, in their 20s and 30s, at the highest and most productive part of human existence. Therefore, instead of having, as we did, terraced housing where old couples lived whose families had grown up, we had overcrowded houses where people, perhaps from Ireland, under the influence of the Roman Catholic religion and not believing in contraception, had the biggest families. There were even Welsh families, which might have been smaller, in that pattern.
The employment recruitment policies of that time brought about a change in that situation. Gross overcrowding emanated from the coming of the people


from South Wales. As I said in Committee, we saw slogans "Go home Welshers" from the indigenous population. Come to think of it, I think that the right hon. Gentleman is of Welsh origin. Certainly his name suggests it. However, things got better and overcrowding receded.
We will not ensure that betterment takes place, as the right hon. Gentleman says, by setting up a commission to suggest massive public expenditure in this connection. That would not solve the problem, neither would it necessarily reduce overcrowding. What will reduce overcrowding is equality of opportunity. That is what the substance of the Bill seeks to achieve. It is a matter to which we must turn our thoughts in the coming period, because the people now living in those areas are not going home. The world, let alone the British people, would not accept any massive repatriation. The right hon. Gentleman can therefore put that out of his mind, whether it is a big mind or a tiny mind.

Mr. Stokes: It is a bigger mind than the hon. Member's.

Mr. Bidwell: I have tested this and asked scores of people. I know that the indigenous people realise the cruelties involved in this suggestion and the fact that, although we might get rid of many worthwhile people, we might be saddled with those who are less than worth while.
The right hon. Gentleman might as well put that out of his mind and start to be constructive and creative, recognising the enormous differences of people —brown and black, not so brown and black. I sometimes think that the right hon. Gentleman himself has the kind of skin which would fit quite comfortably into the Southall community. He could be taken as an Indian resident in time with his kind of complexion. Once we start trying to sort people out on the basis of the colour of their skin, we are on a very dangerous road.
The right hon. Gentleman has said that he does not wish to do that. Therefore, why does he not get off that tack and help us to be constructive? He has had his hands full since he deserted Wolverhampton for Down, South. He has a blood bath there all right. Let him clear that up before he thinks that

he can make a massive contribution to the problems of the mainland.

Mr. Lane: Before I support the excellent case made by my hon. Friend the Member for Barkston Ash (Mr. Alison), I want to comment on the intervention of the right hon. Member for Down, South (Mr. Powell). He said that he had been saying these things year after year. I have listened year after year to this gramophone record. I still await from him a spark of humanity or an iota of relevant and constructive policy for dealing with the problem.
I should like to take up particularly two points in the right hon. Gentleman's speech. He seeks to avert what he calls damage and danger. But he has again sheered away from the logic of his argument. The only answer or solution that I could get out of him in my intervention was massive repatriation to diminish greatly the coloured population.

Mr. Powell: It is true.

Mr. Lane: If he means voluntary repatriation, that is totally irelevant and will make no difference because people will not go. If he means compulsory repatriation, that is the language not of British democracy but of Hitler or of Stalin.

Mrs. Renée Short: Or of President Amin.

Mr. Lane: I am not defending him either. The right hon. Gentleman talked of fallacies. I would remind him of his own fallacy. He should be aware, for it is well known although he may not say it in this House—that 40 per cent. now—it will soon be over 50 per cent.—of the coloured population of this country were born here. To a young coloured man in London who was born here, repatriation is likely to mean the end of the Victoria Line in Brixton. The right hon. Gentleman's supposed solution of the problem is a cruel deception.
The second point, which is more relevant to this debate, is whether or not—yes, as we believed; no, as the right hon. Gentleman is arguing—the injection of more resources into some areas will help to promote harmonious race relations. I cannot tell about Wolverhampton because I have been there only once, but I would invite the right hon. Gentleman to come


with me—I think that I could guarantee him a safe passage—

Mr. Stokes: To Cambridge?

Mr. Lane: No, not Cambridge! The area to which I would invite the right hon. Gentleman is in North Kensington at Notting Hill near where I have lived for 20 years. His arguments today about the relevance of public expenditure and resources would be absolutely refuted by the councillors of all parties—

Mr. Powell: Of course they would.

Mr. Lane: —and the voluntary organisations and the people of all races and colours—

Mr. Powell: Of course they would.

Mr. Lane: —who are working out together a new future for themselves in that area of Notting Hill near where I live.
6.45 p.m.
I should like to ask the Government, where is the
more comprehensive strategy for dealing with disadvantage."?
Those are their own words in paragraph 26 of the White Paper. I beg the Government to show more urgency about this problem. All the evidence which has come to the Select Committee on Race Relations during our current inquiry, which happens to be into the West Indian community—but the same has been said in previous inquiries—is that economic and social disadvantage is a greater handicap even than racial discrimination.
That was well illustrated in the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Barkston Ash. This reality should be reflected in the Bill, and it is convenient to do so in some such clause as this by reference to resources. The effects of this legislation will be the greater if it is seen as part of a major Government programme to tackle the deprivation which afflicts coloured and white people alike. This is largely a matter of resources.
Last autumn in the previous Session. as the right hon. Member for Sunderland, North (Mr. Willey) said, the Select Committee drew attention to the problem. Earlier this year—my hon. Friend mentioned this when quoting from The Times —there were reports that the Government themselves were growing half-hearted and

cutting back on capital expenditure in urban areas. There was a moving appeal in a letter to The Times from the Bishop of Liverpool.
I cannot do better in pressing this argument on the Government than to remind the House of what was said recently by two hon. Members, one from each major party. One is the hon. Member for York (Mr. Lyon). I am sorry to hear how very ill he is, and I hope that the Government will convey to him our best wishes for his restoration to health as soon as possible. I have disagreed and still disagree with the hon. Member on some questions of immigration policy, but I agree absolutely with what he said on this crucial problem of disadvantage in an article in the Sunday Times on 23rd May, entitled "Race: why we must act now".
The hon. Member reminded us that the Think Tank, the Central Policy Review Staff, had, at the instigation of the previous Government, completed just before the General Election a report on race relations. Part of that report said:
Race relations can be improved only by a combined attack on discrimination, the special disabilities of coloured people and urban deprivation in general. Action on urban deprivation would benefit coloured and white communities alike.
He wrote later that such initiatives—the kind of initiatives which have already been taken by the central Government—
are too fragmentary. What is required is a radical redistribution of resources to the areas of greatest need. Even the Conservatives"—
he kindly said—
supported such a policy when they set up the Urban Deprivation Unit in the Home Office.
The hon. Member went on to say:
Despite two years of valiant work by experts recruited to the Unit, nothing has been achieved because bureaucratic ineptitude has been compounded with ministerial indifference".
He ended his article with the plea that the necessary provisions should be included in the Race Relations Bill and drew attention to the fact that even if some extra money is needed—as of course it is, as my hon. Friend the Member for Barkston Ash well illustrated in his reply to the hon. Member for Wolverhampton, North-East (Mrs. Short)—
it is better to invest it now when the difficulties can be easily overcome than to wait until the problems become intolerable.


My second piece of supporting evidence is from the recent open letter to the Prime Minister written by my right hon. Friend the Member for Worcester (Mr. Walker), entitled "Race and the Inner City". He said that the reality of the housing and unemployment and other problems of the coloured minority
is of such dimensions that, unless tackled effectively and quickly, it will bring to Britain the crime, the bitterness and the resentfulness that has been such a tragic feature of those American cities that equally failed to identify the aspiration, hopes and deep disappointments of their coloured population".
My right hon. Friend sketched the position on housing, education and unemployment, as my hon. Friend has done, and ended up by saying:
There is no doubt that with determination within five years we can by positive action bring an end to the misery of this population and bring them somewhere near to an equality of opportunity with the rest of the nation. It is no use talking of lack of racial discrimination if a lack of positive action means that the worst housing, the worst jobs—or no jobs —tend to be concentrated upon one community…Britain has a size of problem that is manageable. Britain does have the resources to manage it. I plead with you, as Prime Minister, to take the urgent action that is now necessary.
I back the judgment and research of my right hon. Friend the Member for Worcester in preference to the desperate speech we had from the right hon. Member for Down, South.
The proposals in the Bill to strengthen the law against discrimination can only help to ensure that people with equal skills and qualifications are treated equally. The Bill will do nothing to ensure that black people in particular are in a position to compete on equal terms with the rest of the population. That is why we believe that, through this new clause, the Bill should enjoin the commission to keep a watch on disadvantage and keep up pressure on the Government to take the necessary action to eradicate it.

Mr. Ronald Bell: In quoting from our right hon. Friend the Member for Worcester (Mr. Walker), my hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge (Mr. Lane) used the expression "lack of positive action". This is what New Clause 2 is about. I cannot remember the exact words, but he implied that unless there was positive action coloured people would not be

able to compete on equal terms with white people. This is a basic fallacy which, I am sorry to say, underlies both the new clause and my hon. Friend's argument and, indeed, the argument of my right hon. Friend the Member for Worcester in his article.
We come back to the numerical approach which I was criticising in our debate on New Clause 1—the idea that we ought to find roughly equivalent numbers of members of all communities in particular occupations and the belief that there is some positive action that can be taken that will in itself render someone from the West Indies or from Asia the immediate or early equal of someone bred from time immemorial in these isles. I have always been very proud to be British, and it does not make any sense to be proud of being British if it is known that a chitty from the Home Secretary can in a week or two give someone else exactly those things of which one is so proud.
It is not a matter of nationality. It is not a matter of birthplace. It is a matter of whom one is born of. We have acquitted ourselves rather well in these islands. I do not know why it has suddenly become disreputable to think that it is a splendid thing to be British or to talk of the British race. The late Sir Winston Churchill said in a modest moment
I had the luck to give the roar.
It was the British race roar around the world that won the battles—the British race, dwelling around the world. Does all of that mean nothing? What about that Fascist pig Shakespeare and all the things he said about the glory of being English? What about John o' Gaunt and so on? We must be sensible about this. Some of us have the right to appeal for a bit of sense about this.
I respect the views of my hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge. He speaks with great sincerity and with a desire to be helpful to people whom he sees as less fortunate and less successful than others. I have watched this progress from the beginning, from the early 1950s. No one can accuse me of any inconsistency about this. What I say I am trying to say in a way which does not sound unkind or unfair. It is people who have taken this sort of attitude who have


brought about the problem with which we are now wrestling.
It was terribly difficult all through the 1950s to get people to face up to this problem. We did not want to face up to it for the sort of reasons given by my hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge, all of which are humane reasons. Others did not want to face up to it because, like myself—although I switched very early indeed—they were old-fashioned imperialists. At the beginning of the 1950s I wanted everyone to be able to come in. It was a case of civis Britannicus sum, and how splendid it was that 600 million people throughout the world were British subjects with the right to come here. So it was, as long as they did not try to come. When they did, we had to retreat from the imperial grandeur of that concept and be sensible.
There were people who on either the humane or the imperialist side found it impossible to change their attitude. On the imperialist side there was—

The Minister of State, Home Office (Mr. Brynmor John): On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I hesitate to interrupt the hon. and learned Member, but may I ask you to confirm that we are discussing New Clause 2?

Mr. Bell: I am discussing New Clause 2. The Minister did not interrupt any of the previous three speakers. This new clause suggests that it is resources which are the crux of the matter and that there is some positive action which can be taken to deal with resources. I am trying to point out that this is not so. I will do so quickly, although I was not aware that I was doing it slowly.
There were people who were reluctant, on the grounds that I mentioned, to stop this inflow. It was people with these motives who brought the problem into existence. Therefore, some of us are entitled to look rather sceptically at proposals which spring from similar motives now. A more common phrase than "positive action"—it has not been used in this debate, but it is the usual one—is "positive discrimination". That is a nice phrase. It means that one may not discriminate in a manner unfavourable to a coloured immigrant but one may discriminate in a manner favourable to him. One may tax the native

population heavily and divert those resources to expenditure on immigrants, as I am afraid the new clause seeks to do. One may seek to overcome some disadvantage by depriving—that is what it comes to—the native population of something which it would otherwise have had and concentrating it instead on these people.
Let us examine the phrases involved, because they are shallow generalisations and the obscurantist use of language leads to these fallacies. What does "urban deprivation" mean? Of what have these people—I am now referring to coloured immigrants—been deprived? Deprivation means that someone has been deprived. Of what have they been deprived? When? By whom? It is a load of nonsense. We cannot talk of people being deprived of something that they never had. Many of these people came from primitive backgrounds. When they came here, their standard of life was raised. They have not been deprived of anything.
7.0 p.m.
But the truth of the matter is not, as the hon. Member for Ealing, Southall (Mr. Bidwell) said, that they were sucked in by the employment situation and, therefore, we have the responsibility of diverting resources to them. There was an element of that—for example, the London Transport recruiting in Barbados and elsewhere and the vouchers which people could get for specific jobs—but it was never the main factor, and because it was not the main factor the new clause is irrelevant to the problem.
The main factor was demographic, and we have to hoist that in if we are to have any success in our broad policy on this subject. It was the population explosion in the West Indies and the tropical areas of the world which produced this problem. The West Indian Royal Commission went out there just before the war and reported in 1939–40. It showed that the difference in the rates of increase between tropical peoples and those of temperate climates was a phenomenon the significance of which had not yet been realised. After the war, we had five years of acute shipping shortage and then, in the early 1950s, that shortage was alleviated. By then the demographic pressures were 10 years further on than when the commission had reported, and


these people began to pour in. They came because of the population explosion out there.
When one asks "What are we going to do about it here?" let us remember that they came because of the population explosion, which occurred because we took to them the benefits of Western civilisation which they had not achieved themselves. So their birth rate, at 38 per 1,000, remained the same while their death rate collapsed from 35 to 11 per 1,000. From a natural rate of increase of 3 per 1,000, there was a rise to 23 per thousand.
How does one cure that phenomenon by resorting to some process of lavishing upon them the products of Westtern civilisation without the concomitant disciplines which have made ours a balanced civilisation? We discovered things bit by bit—mastery over self, accompanied by mastery over the environment, and that is their problem. That is why we have these conditions in the urban areas. It is because Western civilisation has been given to them without that mastery over self which created the material benefits of Western civilisation.
All this raises extremely difficult problems. The immigrants would have raised problems if they had come in small numbers and spread, but perhaps they would have been superable problems. But they have come in big numbers and they have clotted.
Who knows the answer to the problem? I do not want to be harsh about the new clause, because I think that my hon. Friend the Member for Barkston Ash (Mr. Alison) is aware of the problem and wants to suggest something that can be done about it. But I do not believe that one can do this. I believe that it will have the wrong effect. One will pauperise people who are already overwhelmed by a material standard which they have played no part in creating. That is the problem.
My hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge accused my right hon. Friend the Member for Down, South (Mr. Powell) of describing the problem and of criticising other people's solutions but not providing his own solutions. I make no comment on that, although perhaps it is a fair point to make. But I shall try

to provide my own solutions. I think that the problem must be tackled on several fronts.
One of those is obvious and clear: we have to stop these people coming in and adding to the problem. Anything else is scratching at the problem. Secondly, with over 2½ million of them here one has to have an element of repatriation, and it is no good simply saying that it is difficult. I disagreed with my right hon. Friend the Member for Down, South when he said that the spending of money, which is what the new clause is about, would play no part in the solution. That is not quite true, because one can spend money on quite a large scale to help voluntary repatriation through resettlement grants in the countries from which they came. That would be a very wise expenditure. One will not solve the problem of 2½ million like that, but one has to mitigate the problem on half a dozen different fronts. That is really the point at issue.
I think that mere subsidisation is corrupting. Some of my hon. Friends have told us of what goes on in their constituencies. My hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Edgbaston (Mrs. Knight), for example, told us the other day of a family in her constituency where the husband has three wives and 29 children and they are all on social security. That is an isolated case, but such things are still much too common and they demoralise communities which are clotted in this way.
I think, therefore, that we have to go very carefully with any policy on positive discrimination. That, of course, is one element of the new clause. There is another; I do not think that resources have any part to play at all. The idea that discrimination, presumably on the part of the white indigenous population, will be diminished or eliminated by the expenditure of resources on the immigrant population is totally unreal. I do not think that it is true or has any bearing on the problem.
Perhaps—and it is not a bad thing—in a way my hon. Friend may have Browning's attitude. In his "The Statue and the Bust", Browning writes:
The counter our lovers staked was lost
As surely as if it were lawful coin:
And the sin I impute to each frustrate ghost


Was, the unlit lamp and the ungirt loin,
Though the end in sight was a crime, I say.
Or perhaps my hon. Friend may have been Miltonic and have felt
That only he knows virtue who first knows the interest that vice can promise to her followers, and yet abstains, and yet rejects.
I do not know whether my hon. Friend wants to say that his is a Browning or a Miltonic attitude. But, in all seriousness, we mislead ourselves dangerously if we think that spending money will do anything very much. We have to reduce the numbers in some way, and we have to help these people to be self-respecting members of the community.
My personal view is that this kind of legislation is positively harmful in that direction. It leads to bad relations between the communities. One can take any aspect one likes; the new clause covers the whole field. It is, however, perhaps specially directed to housing, and one can also take the general provisions of the Bill in that respect.
A coloured person wants to buy a house. He feels that he is being discriminated against—that is a misuse of language, but I shall use it—by people of the native population. He feels that he has been refused a house because he is coloured. He may be right or he may be wrong. Without this Bill, he would not know; he would let it pass and probably forget about it. With this Bill, he is tempted to take positive steps, perhaps for the first time, against a member of the host community—formal steps.
That person is dragged through the procedure, which it would be wrong for me to go into now because it is a very humiliating, oppressive and expensive procedure. The member of the native community against whom the coloured person takes these steps is deeply embittered, as are his family and his friends, and they remain so ever after. The immigrant who has taken these formal steps against the host community, which he would not otherwise have taken, has also crystallised himself in an attitude of hostility, and he and those who were with him remain so in their relations to the host community ever after. The accumulation of such cases week by week, month by month and year by year builds up to the flashpoint from which violence comes.
These are dangerous proposals. I do not suggest that they are all inherent in the new clause or that the mover of the clause has any such objective in mind, because his objectives are the opposite to that. But the clause would have that effect. If in doubt I try to give the advantage to my own side, but if my hon. Friend takes the new clause to a vote I shall not feel able to go into the Lobby with him.

Mrs. Renée Short: I have indicated that I support the principle of the new clause. I have spent most of my political life trying to get help for those who are deprived. I shall not engage in a semantic battle. We all understand what we mean by "deprived", and we know that in the large towns and cities there are many deprived families living in poor conditions. It is appalling that 30 years after the end of the war there are literally millions of families living in sub-standard homes.
In my constituency there are white families and black families, Ukrainians, Italians, and Poles, as well as Indians, Pakistanis and West Indians. It is a scandal that large numbers of children of different nationalities are still attending old Victorian schools in our large towns and cities and that mothers are having to struggle in appalling conditions of housing and schooling to bring up their children. That applies whether they are black mothers or white mothers.
I find it terrible that, now we have all accepted the principles of nursery education and we understand what that does for the pre-school child to give him a good basis in life, we have so little nursery education. My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister said on Tuesday that we now have more nursery education than before, but that depends upon what one compares it with. We are presiding over the collapse of nursery education. Nursery classes stand empty all over the country, and that is a scandal.
I hope that the Minister is aware that I am talking of families, whatever the colour of their skin. I hope he will understand the depth of feeling among hon. Members on this side of the House and, indeed, on the other side. We all want to see these defects remedied.

Mr. Max Madden: Does my hon. Friend agree that the deep problems


that she is discussing, which are of concern to all of us, will not be remedied if immigration is halted or if there is an extensive repatriation of immigrants from this country?

7.15 p.m.

Mrs. Short: Of course I agree. I support the new clause. It is not about repatriation but is about giving the commission the power to make recommendations on the need for more resources in certain areas.
When I asked the hon. Member for Barkston Ash (Mr. Alison) about cuts in Government expenditure—because he is basically proposing an increase—he suggested that cuts might be made in the road improvement programme. That might be all very well, but one could have suggested other more meaningful cuts. Hon. Members should think what we could have done for the deprived if we had not built Concorde or if we had made more meaningful cuts in defence expenditure. That would have given us more money to spend on deprived families—black and white. If, as the hon. Gentleman suggested, we cut resources used for nationalised industries, the situation about which we are concerned would be made more difficult because it would create more unemployment. Rising unemployment is an acute problem in this context.
We must have more resources to help all our people. I emphasise that, because more resources for the deprived areas of our towns and cities means more help for the people who came to the country during the past 20 years since the right hon. Member for Down, South (Mr. Powell) was instrumental in encouraging and recruiting them. More resources would also mean more help for people who lived here before. We need to help all our population, and we are fighting for more resources for all the people in the country.
The only solution that the right hon. Member for Down, South can suggest in his paranoiac outpourings is repatriation. Having encouraged these people to come here, the right hon. Gentleman would banish them. He does not get much support for that philosophy in the House. He insisted on using the phrase "alien wedge", which he repeated so often in his speech. Has he noticed how few

people are present when he speaks today? The House no longer fills when he speaks, and very few people listen to him. Neither here nor in many places in the country does his voice have the compelling quality that it used to have. He sounds rather like the man that most of us do not support either—Mr. President Amin —and perhaps we should give him a new name to attach to his own.
The right hon. Gentleman seems to forget that we are talking about human beings, people who are in need, people who need to have their standards of living improved and who need the opportunity to work. Without those opportunities, the fruitful ground will be nourished on which organisations like the National Front make progress to play on the fear of the population of the country that the presence of people from the Commonwealth is a threat to their livelihood and well-being. We reject that. We reject the philosophy that lies behind the right hon. Gentleman's speeches on this subject, and we reject the philosophy behind the activities of the National Front.
We have discussed that matter with the Home Secretary and we are all aware of the need to counteract the activities of such organisations. The best thing we can do is to improve the standard of living of all those people living in deprived areas.
I hope that the Government will accept the principle of the new clause and that they will accept the strong case for providing more resources. That is the basis of much of the argument about public expenditure and support for nationalised industries. It is a question of objectives and everything that flows from a buoyant and flourishing economy.

Mr. A. G. F. Hall-Davis: I shall be brief, because I suspect that the House wishes to come to a conclusion on this matter, but I hope that I shall succeed in making clear my feelings on the clause and some of the comments about it.
I listened to the right hon. Member for Down, South (Mr. Powell) vigorously outline the macro-economic policy of massive repatriation. I, too, missed from him any advice on the way in which we should proceed pending achievement of his overall objective. I think that even he would not


expect it to be achieved in a short time. I felt that his experience in his former constituency and his great intellectual power were capable of producing valuable observations, which would be of great help to the House and to his fellow citizens. But as he proceeded I realised that we were not to have them, not because he wished to concentrate on a single theme, not because he did not wish to divert his own efforts from what he considered the overriding objective, but because he felt that action to alleviate immediate hardships would divert people's attention from his fundamental solution, and perhaps delay or negate it.
I am sure that the right hon. Gentleman is very sincere, and I hope that he will give me credit for equal but no greater sincerity. I believe that his approach means using people as pawns in a political argument which should be conducted by debate and not by neglect of their needs or by pressure. Have we no moral obligation to the children of immigrant families, of minority families? Their parents came here within the law, and the children had no say in the matter. Their parents came in accordance with statutes that were ruling under a Government of which the right hon. Gentleman was a member. Those are fundamental points.
I believe that man is created in the image of God in some way, and that he has a right to develop his personality and talents. If we do not give the support that we seek to ensure by the new clause, we deny that fundamental right. We should at least consider that when we conduct our argument on how to proceed.
There are fields in which additional support must be justified if we assess the needs of minorities in exactly the same way as we assess the needs of other citizens. They lie largely in education. There are problems in education, faced particularly by West Indian children, which we have been slow to identify but which we can now appreciate better than we could some years ago. They need special support in identifying job opportunities and the qualifications needed to fill them, and assessing how best to equip themselves to fill them.
I support the clause, because I believe that in the current financial year the Government are engaged in an irrational restriction of expenditure. They have got

themselves into a position in which they must make unadmitted and undebated cuts in public expenditure that lead to distortion of the pattern of expenditure that both sides of the House would like to see. I believe that the Race Relations Board has a rôle to play in quickening the identification of the sort of need to which I have referred. Nobody can say that we have been rapid until now.
For these reasons, I disagree with the right hon. Gentleman's reluctance to allow the House or the country to be diverted from macro-economic policies by the consideration of urgent needs, and I distrust the Government's courage to discuss openly what is going on in public expenditure. The clause would make any Government justify rationally and openly whether they were discharging their responsibilities in this very difficult but crucial area.
I should like to say one word about the indigenous community, because of the comments of my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Beaconsfield (Mr. Bell). I do not believe that by helping to remove the frustrations and sense of injustice of minority communities we should be doing anything but assisting the happiness and well-being of the indigenous community.

Mr. Ronald Bell: Why should the minority communities have a sense of injustice?

Mr. Hall-Davis: Perhaps another occasion will present itself to answer that.

Mr. John: We have had a long debate. I had originally intended to stick to the new clause, but it is not possible wholly to do so. However, I shall keep to a minimum my remarks on the wider issues, so that I do not stray outside the rules of order or disappoint hon. Members who wish to come to a conclusion on the matter.
I do not propose to go through the anthropological gobbledegook to which we were treated by the hon. and learned Member for Beaconsfield (Mr. Bell), or to comment in detail on the fascinating but somewhat horrifying glimpse of the mind which he revealed under his suave exterior and softly-spoken manner.

Mr. Edward Lyons: Is my hon. Friend aware that the hon. and learned Gentleman has somewhat


similar views about women and Europeans?

Mr. John: Both of those are such formidable categories that it would take me outside the realms of order if I tried to deal with them now.
One can agree with the right hon. Member for Down, South (Mr. Powell) that the simple proposition that poverty equals crime was a gross over-simplification brought about by a Victorian sense of self-confidence. But the fact that it has proved difficult to establish the connection between material conditions and crime does not mean that there is no connection. The right hon. Gentleman fell into an equal error when he said that poverty does not equal crime. He seemed to advocate the doctrine of human imperfectibility, which I do not share.
The clause has a dual purpose. First, it concerns an analysis of the problem of deprivation and inner-city decay, which is well understood in this country, except by the hon. and learned Member for Beaconsfield, and which is not confined to what he calls immigrants but what the hon. Member for Cambridge (Mr. Lane) reminded him is increasingly a British-born population.
At times I wish that the right hon. Member for Down, South could read some of the correspondence that his views generate. Many of the fears that one hears expressed, sometimes in support of the right hon. Gentleman's views, are about deprivation, and so on. There is clearly a substantial content to the problem of race relations, which I was at pains to acknowledge in Committee.
Then one comes to the solution propounded by the clause. The right hon. Gentleman's solution was massive repatriation. The Government utterly reject that solution. The people who are here deserve to be treated equally as citizens of Britain. We believe in racial harmony and good race relations. That is why we are putting the Bill through Parliament. We proclaim our faith in that doctrine. I should say that the right hon. Gentleman was giving way to a council of despair, except that I had the sneaking suspicion that in his scenarios of gloom it was a council of relish rather than despair.
I return to the solution propounded in the clause for the admitted problems that many of us face, which is to ask the commission specifically to refer, in a report, to the question of resources.
I ask that the new clause be not adopted, not because of any lack of sympathy with the problems that have been outlined but because I believe it to be unnecessary. I take that view because, as the hon. Member for Barkston Ash (Mr. Alison) will know, there is power under Clause 46 to report. Indeed, the commission will have a duty to review the working of the Act. It will have power to draw attention to any lack of resources. That will not be the commission's only means or opportunity of access to the Secretary of State. The problem is met because when the commission is preparing its estimates it must correlate past expenditure and activities. There is the need to measure resources against activities in relation to its own budget. The hon. Gentleman will find that such matters are catered for in the Bill as it stands without adding the new clause.
Within the commission's budget and within consents, it is for the commission to place emphasis upon the sector that it thinks important. There is power for the commission to make its report and to highlight any lack of resources. Therefore, I believe the new clause to be unnecessary. I end by setting against the description of the commission's work the thoughts that both the hon. Member for Barkston Ash and I share about the position in Britain.

7.30 p.m.

Mr. William Whitelaw: I shall reply briefly to what the Minister of State has said and make one or two wider comments before returning to the narrower point of the new clause.
The new clause was tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Barkston Ash (Mr. Alison) so as to call attention to the problem of resources. Along with my hon. Friends the Members for Cambridge (Mr. Lane) and Morecambe and Lansdale (Mr. Hall-Davis), I agree that it is an extremely important matter. I do not accept the opinion of the right hon. Member for Down, South (Mr. Powell) that this is a soft option. I believe that all the available options have to be used.


My view on the broad issue is probably well known by now, namely, that we should not add to the existing problems. I am prepared to restate that view. The problems will not go away. It is an illusion to think that in the end we can substantially reduce the need to do something about certain populations in difficult areas. That is a fact that we must face.
My hon. and learned Friend the Member for Beaconsfield (Mr. Bell) says that he changed his view earlier than most people. I give him credit for doing so. But the right hon. Member for Down, South and I were both members of the same Government. The right hon. Gentleman was a senior member while I was a junior one. In the end, that Government came forward with the Commonwealth Immigrants Act. But many people had come into this country long before that Act was introduced. I have never gone into the argument about the nurses—the argument that was taken up by the hon. Member for Wolverhampton, North-East (Mrs. Short)—but the Government of which my right hon. Friend and I were members undoubtedly brought in such people, and they are now producing children. At the time that they came here the British people were exercising their responsibilities. We must now deal with the situation and not make the problem worse. I do not think we can avoid it altogether by any one set of measures. That is why I believe that resources are important.
The right hon. Member for Down, South moved into an area that is not really covered by the Bill. He happens to represent a Northern Ireland constituency. He said that there is no real relationship between poverty and crime. I suggest that there is a clear relationship between bitterness and deprivation. I shall give an example, and I think that the right hon. Gentleman and I will probably be in agreement.
There is no doubt that in Northern Ireland the bitterness on the Protestant side in the Shankill Road and on the Catholic side in the Falls Road is much greater than the bitterness in any other part of Northern Ireland,where conditions are much better. It may be that the close proximity of the two roads has

contributed to the bitterness. The right hon. Gentleman spoke about fighting for territory, and that is what happened to that unhappy part of Belfast. However, the fact that it was a much less happy living environment than many other places surely contributed to the amount of bitterness that is now present. I believe that to be an uncontrovertible fact, which demonstrates that there is a relationship between environment and bitterness. In some instances I believe that bitterness has led to crime. It has certainly led to terrorism.
The environment in which we live is an important factor. That is why I feel that efforts should be made to improve the conditions in which many people live. On Monday my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Hall Green (Mr. Eyre) argued a powerful case about conditions in Birmingham, and especially in his own constituency. He spoke about the need for action to be taken and he has written to the Prime Minister. He argued a strong case.
Similar considerations led us to bring forward the new clause, which has led to a wide debate. The Minister of State has said that he believes the clause to be unnecessary. In putting forward that view he referred to Clause 46. I have a horror of putting anything into legislation which is unnecessary—it is a great mistake to do so—but I believe that we were right to table the new clause and right to have this debate. However, I do not think it would be right to seek to add the new clause to the Bill, bearing in mind the circumstances that have been put to us by the Minister of State. Therefore, I hope that my hon. Friends will not press the new clause.

Motion and clause, by leave, withdrawn.

New Clause 3

RIGHTS OF PERSONS NAMED IN TERMS OF REFERENCE OF FORMAL INVESTIGATIONS

'() Whenever any notice of the holding of a formal investigation is served upon any person under section 49(3) of this Act, such person shall have the right—

(a) to give evidence orally or in writing to the Commission, to call witnesses on his own behalf, and to cross-examine other witnesses; and
(b) to be represented by counsel or solicitor or other; and the provisions of the


Legal Aid Act 1974 shall extend to any such person, and the relevant notice shall inform him of each of the rights conferred upon him by this subsection'.—[Mr. Mayhew.]

Brought up and read the First time.

Mr. Patrick Mayhew: I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.
The new clause is concerned with the power of the commission to conduct a formal investigation. We have brought it forward for two main reasons. First, we wish to avoid injustice. Secondly, if an investigation is held under the procedure provided in the Bill we wish to ensure that it gets to the truth. It might be helpful if I remind the House of the circumstances in which an investigation may be held under the Bill. I shall indicate what may be involved for the person whose activities are to be investigated and explain why we believe the new clause to be necessary.
The House will remember that Clause 48 confers power upon the commission to conduct a formal investigation. That power is limited to any purpose connected with the carrying out of the commission's duties. We have already considered its duties, which are to be found in Clause 43. Perhaps it is not necessary to take the time of the House by reciting them.
An examination may be directed to the activities of a specified person. That may be a person in the ordinary English sense of the word—namely, an individual. But it may be a "person" in law—namely, a company. That is to be found in Clause 49. If the investigation is to be directed to the activities of a person, a notice must be given by the commission of that fact. If such a notice is given and if the investigation is to be directed to the activities of an individual person, obligations may be imposed upon that person which we regard as being of a most serious nature.
By Clause 50 he may be required to furnish written information. He may be required to furnish oral evidence or to produce documents, the evidence and documents relating to matters specified by the notice. All this is to be found in Clause 50. If he does not do so, or delays in doing so, all the apparatus of the law may be invoked against him. We see that from later passages in the same clause.
All these things may be required of a person if it is believed by the Commission

that he may have done, or may be doing, any or indeed all of the following things. One is committing unlawful discrimination as defined in Parts II and III of the Bill. The matter of following an unlawful discriminatory practice is another category covered in Clause 28. It will be noted that within the drafting of this Bill a "discriminatory practice" is different from a "discriminatory act". Another category relates to the publishing of discriminatory advertisements, or giving instructions for or applying pressure to other persons to commit discriminatory acts. For that we look to Clauses 29, 30 and 31.
If the investigation, once carried out, satisfies the commission that the belief is well founded, serious consequences may ensue to the persons concerned. This is why we say that the new clause is needed. Those consequences are contained in Part VIII of the Bill, which relates to the enforcement provisions. The commission may in those circumstances first issue a non-discrimination notice under Clause 58. We do not mind too much about that because nothing very much turns upon it, but it is worth bearing in mind that the non-discrimination notice can impose significant restrictions upon the person who receives it and it can act as the foundation stone for proceeding against that person later.
Secondly, if the matter in question is a contravention of Clause 29, 30 or 31—provisions relating to discriminatory advertisements, instructions to discriminate and pressure to discriminate—in any of those circumstances it can lead the commission to proceed against that person in either an industrial tribunal, a county court or a sheriff court.
By Clause 63 it is only the commission that is allowed to take proceedings in such cases. This is a serious feature in that the evidence extracted from the person investigated in the course of investigation could be used in cross-examination against him in any of those proceedings.
Lastly, I notice that the commission has to make a report of its findings. That would be a public document and could have harmful consquences. In these days, when so many firms depend for much of their income on Government patronage, an obvious source of harm is there revealed. The provisions of Clause 12—if we do not succeed in deleting them


later this evening—could prejudice the discretion of qualifying bodies as defined in the Bill in executing their functions. They could seriously damage the reputation of the person investigated, and there is no appeal from the findings. There is a sad topicality about that feature.

Mr. John Page: Will my hon. and learned Friend explain to a layman how the "collective person" may be drawn? Would it be possible for the commission to ask for reports to be kept on all garages or launderettes so that they might have to be named specifically rather than that the reports should relate merely to garages and launderettes in a particular area?

Mr. Mayhew: The person the commission is entitled to investigate may be either a person or "a person" in law—for example, a company. If the garage concerned were operated by a company, it is the activities of the company that could be investigated under that provision.

Mr. Charles Fletcher-Cooke: Could it involve a trade union?

Mr. Mayhew: That is a nice point, depending on the construction of the trade union. I am not sure whether trade unions have articles of association. Since they represent a corporate entity, I should think that the answer is "Yes". However, I do not know for sure. Perhaps the Minister will give us that information in his reply.
In Standing Committee we took the view that this power should be restricted. We also took the view—which did not prevail—that no such formal investigation should be launched or instituted without the prior authority of the Secretary of State. Since that view did not prevail, by tabling the new clause we now seek to mitigate the potential injustice which that power might occasion.
7.45 p.m.
If I may turn to Clause 50 in this context, there is no right conferred on the person to be investigated to give evidence himself. He may be required to give evidence, but no right is conferred on him to give evidence on his own behalf or, indeed, to call evidence on his own behalf.

Mr. John: I hate to intervene, because it will probably not shorten what the

hon. and learned Gentleman is saying, but if he looks at Clause 58(5) he will see that a non-discrimination notice will not be served unless the commission has first offered a person an opportunity of making oral or written representations in the matter.

Mr. Mayhew: It is a non-discrimination notice, and I think that the Minister has a point there. I am saying that the non-discrimination comes only as a consequence of a finding. What I am saying is that a finding can be made and a report can be published and submitted to the Minister without any right having been conferred on the person investigated to give evidence himself or on his behalf. We believe that the fact that that can be done only after investigation has been completed is a blemish. We say that if the powers are warranted and it is a proper case, there should be fair play for the person investigated. He may often be a small employer and not a powerful person; he may not be a man of great education, and may not have any resources to back an investigation of this kind. Therefore, such a person should be able to take advice on the questions he must answer and the documents he must produce.
Clause 50(3) provides that the person investigated need not give information or produce documents, save those he could be compelled to give or produce in civil proceedings in the High Court. We say that not everybody carries the necessary rules in his head or has the ability to take advice. That is why we believe that a person in this position should have the right to give his side of the matter or to bring his own witnesses to give such information, if that is desired. At this stage the Bill gives him none of this—indeed, it is the other way. Let him have the right to representation and to legal aid if he cannot afford to do these things himself. That would assist the commission as much as it would assist him. Lastly, let the notice of the investigation tell him that he has those rights. These are the reasons that lead us to believe that the new clause is necessary.

Mr. Powell: I believe that this clause, which has been moved with great lucidity and persuasiveness by the hon. and learned Member for Royal Tunbridge


Wells (Mr. Mayhew) deserves our support, and, as did the preivous new clauses, it points somewhat deeper into the nature of legislation of this kind.
It will not have escaped attention that the clause to which the new clause is attached, namely, Clause 49, carries with it in the margin the tell-tale reference "S" for "sex", which tells us that it is one of those almost standard clauses that are now repeated as we legislate against discrimination in one sphere after another.
I, like other hon. Members, over the months have received a number of dossiers of investigations that have been undertaken by the Race Relations Board under the present law. Nothing that I am saying implies that I consider that the Race Relations Board has behaved unreasonably or oppressively, and my criticism is not directed at the board. Nor am I in any way seeking to condone a breach of the law, whether it is a law of which I approve or disapprove, or regard as wise or foolish.
Having said that, I must say that the proceedings in these dossiers make pretty unpleasant reading. So often they reveal the individual—and it may be, in fact, that he has not been in compliance with the Act—caught in a web of investigation, in which he feels helpless and suffers from a sense of being unfairly treated. This leaves him with a quite different sense from that with which he would have been left if he had been the object of the normal processes of law.
I do not think the kind of procedure that would be initiated under Clause 49, or the corresponding provisions of the similar anti-discrimination Acts, really satisfies natural justice or fair dealing. This is not because of any intention to be unfair on the part of the Race Relations Board—indeed, it is patently clear from its correspondence that it has no such intention.
I believe that the error lies deeper. It lies deeper than would be totally cured by the new clause which the hon. Member has moved. But at least the new clause would alleviate the reasons for unease which I am not alone in feeling.
In all this legislation, we have departed from the general principle that if a citizen is to be damnified for a breach of the law, he should be dealt with by the

normal due process of law if at all possible.
This legislation proceeds on the opposite assumption. It proceeds on the assumption that if at all possible breaches of the law should be corrected or repressed, not through the ordinary process of law but by the activities of special bodies which the respective Acts set up.
The reason why I believe this development has occurred in our legislation is that these bodies are deliberately given two separate and incompatible functions. If we read Clause 43, which sets up the commission, we see that it gives the commission the duties of working towards the elimination of discrimination and promoting equality of opportunity. To use a broad and inaccurate expression, these duties are hortatory and administrative. They are duties distinctive in character, indeed, incompatible in character with the duty of detecting a breach of the law and following it up to the proper conclusion.
In all this legislation we have mistakenly given both these separate functions to the same body. I speak fresh from the examination of one of these Bills—the Fair Employment Bill (Northern Ireland)—which has exactly the same combination. This is a fundamental mistake in legislation. Even if we were not prepared to entrust to the courts —as we should have done—the business of ascertaining the facts, applying the law and producing the remedy, we should, nevertheless, have separated totally that function from the functions of exhortation, encouragement and education which occupy so large a bulk of this legislation.
As a result we have what is, in effect, an administration of the law being conducted very largely by bodies which do not apply the normal process of law, and which are not recognised by the citizen as having the majesty and justification of the courts of law. The persons concerned do not necessarily have a legal training or a judicial approach; indeed, they hardly go for the judicial approach but for the hortatory approach, which is a part of their function. This approach arouses more hostility than it need on the part of the public. It arouses avoidable hostility, not only among those who come within the purview of the commission, and are subjected to investigation,


but also among a much wider circle of people who have heard second-or third-hand of such investigations. These are people who know that the investigations take place and who are likely to say "There is the Race Relations Board, and it will have you up for this or for that." Very often it is likely that the things they mention are things for which one could not be brought before the board.
As a result, the area to which the legislation is directed is damaged. The legislation is therefore counter-productive from the point of view of those who promote it. Therefore, I hope that, even at this stage of the Bill we will, as far as possible, introduce into the Bill opportunities, safeguards and an atmosphere of due process of law in respect of which the Bill, as it stands, is lacking. I hope that the Government will see their way clear to adopt the new clause.

8.0 p.m.

Mr. John: The formal investigation processes which comprise Clauses 48 to 50 of the Bill have to strike a difficult balance between the need to respect the rights of those involved and the need to ensure that the commission has adequate powers to carry out its functions. But I cannot assent to the hon. and learned Gentleman's shorthand formula that, in fact, individual rights are failing to be safeguarded.
Clause 49(2), for example, requires terms of reference to be set up as to the holding of an investigation. Clause 49(3) deals with the giving of notice about the holding of an investigation. Representations can be made to the commission. Clause 52 deals with limiting the commission's power to require information. Clause 53 also limits information which can be required. The hon. and learned Gentleman mentioned the criminal law, but apart from Clause 70—which does not bear on this problem—and some minor exception about the deliberate destruction of records, the Bill imposes only a civil liability.
If I had one objection above all others to the clause it would be that the full panoply of a procedure which is more suited to the criminal law is to be imported into a Bill which imposes only a

civil liability. The commission's strategic rôle to deal with wider questions, such as the promotion of good race relations, does not involve full civil liability. The only action which the commission could take in such a case, as opposed to individual investigation, would be to require the action to stop. It cannot penalise or obtain compensation. The procedure in the new clause is extremely complicated and would make formal investigation quite unworkable.
Let me now turn to the other aspect of this matter. There is no equation between the law here and full-blown civil proceedings in terms of the commission's strategic rôle. Where the investigation was concerned with an individual, before any question of civil proceedings arose there would first have to be a finding of unlawful discrimination by the commission. Before the commission could issue a non-discrimination notice under Clause 58(5) it would have to give the affected individual the opportunity of making oral or written representations, and that could of course involve being represented at the body. But even then—and this is where I disagree with the hon. and learned Gentleman when he said that there was no appeal—there is an appeal against the issue of a non-discrimination notice. The hon. and learned Gentleman accepted that in Committee. It is possible for an aggrieved individual against whom a non-discrimination notice has been issued to appeal against that issue to the proper court. That would then, of course, be dealt with in the normal way.
But the other leg of the new clause concerns the question of legal aid being available to those who are caught under this provision and who want to go through the formalities of the clause. The absurdity that that may produce is that people may be legally aided at a formal investigation, and if it were an employer and the matter were referred thereafter to an industrial tribunal, he would not be legally aided in dealing with the substantive part of the action.
For all the reasons I have outlined, and particularly the reasons which show the safeguards that the individual has on this procedure and the comparatively limited effect of a finding under it, I believe that the individual is well taken care of. To import the sort of formal machinery that the hon. and learned


Gentleman is proposing would make the procedure itself unworkable and would mean that there was a very great loss in the number of disputes which were resolved before they reached the stage of a full-blown pitched battle.
If the hon. and learned Gentleman says that bitterness is engendered by seeking to have the matter resolved before a commission or board, how much more would there be if that matter were needlessly and prematurely aired before the courts?

Mr. A. P. Costain: The sort of people who will get caught by this provision are not usually involved in other offences. Will they be allowed to consult their solicitors, and get legal aid for that part of the process?

Mr. John: They could consult their solicitors, but legal aid is not available for such a process. They have to be given notice of any such formal investigation before it takes place, so that they would have the opportunity of making representations and of having legal advice in making them.
I believe that the Bill as drafted and without the addition of the new clause provides an additional safeguard and the flexibility of procedure which is necessary to help in this situation.

Mr. John Page: The Minister of State has given an extremely unsatisfactory reply to the clear, reasoned and measured proposal advanced by my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Royal Tunbridge Wells (Mr. Mayhew). The Minister left many buttons undone. He did not say that there was a right by a person who was being investigated to give evidence, orally or in writing, to the commission. He said that such a person would receive a notice and could make representations. I do not see the provision for the making of representations. I suppose the hon. Gentleman means that if someone gets a letter from the commission he will be expected to answer it. That is hardly a proper opportunity for an individual who is being investigated to make proper representations on his behalf. Although one could possibly call a response to notification of investigation evidence in writing, nowhere is it said that it would be possible for someone investigated to call witnesses.

Employers, trade unions and others would, I believe, prefer to be certain that they could make representations and call witnesses on their behalf before the commission.
It is then said that there is no need for them to be represented by counsel or a solicitor at their own expense. We are told that they would be able to get legal advice, but one can get legal advice on anything, so I do not think that the Minister is being particularly generous there. What is really required is that a person who should be believed to be innocent until proved guilty should be able to have some advice and to have what is known as the prisoner's friend sitting behind him when the charges against him are being investigated. By whom will they be investigated? It seems that it will be done by one of eight to 15 full-time or part-time members of the commission. Let us suppose that there are 10 members of the commission. They are likely to be too busy to be continually carrying out these investigations.
An investigation may be carried out by only one of the commissioners, appointed by the Secretary of State. If the commission is like the Race Relations Board or any of the other boards we have seen established recently, its membership will be drawn from almost statutory classes. We shall have a lawyer, a trade unionist, an employer, at least one woman and, presumably, representatives from a fairly large number of individual ethnic racial groups.
It is undesirable that a semi-judicial investigation such as this should be carried out by a person who has been chosen almost in order to be partisan. That is why the appointees will have been nominated to the commission.
I hope that commissioners—like Mr. Speaker and his deputies when they are in the Chair—will forget their old partisanship and friendships and be totally impartial. But I find it difficult to believe that all those who will be chosen for their partisanship will not sometimes, for one minute in each hour of the investigation, allow the burning passions which might have caused their appointment to come out like steam from the spout of a kettle. I do not like the fact that we can have merely one commissioner conducting an investigation.
With the approval of the Secretary of State, the commission can appoint a number of full-time or part-time commissioners to carry out formal investigations. I am concerned that these people are to become commissioners. They will not be part of the commission in any of its work except the carrying out of investigations. They should be called investigators, deputy-assistant commissioners or some other such name. If they are known as commissioners by the public and the newspapers—

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Myer Galpern): Order. I have allowed the hon. Member a great deal of latitude, but I believe he is going well wide of the proposed new clause and even beyond a reasonable extension of its limits.

Mr. Page: I am sure I have hammered home that point with unnecessary vigour, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I apologise.
In view of the loopholes which I apprehend, it is right that those who are to be investigated should have the opportunity of giving evidence and having proper legal advice and assistance during the hearing and not afterwards.

8.15 p.m.

Mr. Tebbit: The Minister gave a rather odd reply to a new clause which deals with investigation. Almost everything he said referred to enforcement. Clauses 48 to 52 refer to investigation, yet in his intervention in the speech of my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Royal Tunbridge Wells (Mr. Mayhew) the Minister referred us to Clause 58, which is about enforcement.
The heart of this matter is that before an enforcement notice is issued there must be a finding as a result of an investigation. Surely we are not expected to be satisfied that procedures are being brought in at the time the enforcement notice is issued. It is too late then. We have to ensure that we get the right timing. It is at the time of the investigation leading to the finding that the unfortunate person being investigated needs to be protected.
The Minister referred to Clause 58(5)(b) and said that when an enforcement notice was being issued the person concerned had to he offered the opportunity of making oral and/or written

representations within not less than 28 days. But that is not what the new clause suggests. It proposes not only that this right should be given much earlier but that there should also be the right for the person concerned to call witnesses on his behalf and to cross-examine other witnesses.
Where do these rights appear in Clause 58(5)(b)? Where is the right to be represented by counsel or solicitor? Where is the provision for legal aid? It is nowhere at all.
The Minister's intervention was irrelevant to the point of frivolity. I hope he will consider how this legislation would have been treated by his right hon. and hon. Friends if it were a measure to set up a body charged with the improvement of industrial relations and not only with persuading people to improve industrial relations but with investigating the cause of bad industrial relations and issuing enforcement notices against people guilty of such bad relations.
Does the hon. Gentleman say that there is no need for legal representation or for a right to call witnesses and to cross-examine at the stage of the investigation because there is a provision for writing to the commission when the enforcement notice is issued? I doubt it. I certainly do not think he would have the sauce to stand at the Dispatch Box and tell hon. Members not to worry too much because it is only a matter of issuing enforcement notices.
I seem to remember that under previous legislation, in which there were no criminal sanctions, people occasionally went to gaol because they did not obey court injunctions. That is precisely what can happen under the Bill. The Minister knows that, and he knows that he would be talking in a totally different manner if this were about trade unionists instead of ordinary human being who do not have the power in the Cabinet that the TUC has today.

Mr. Edward Lyons: What astonishes me about the speeches that I have just heard is that neither of the last two speakers said one word when these clauses, word for word, were put into the Sex Discrimination Act and became law. I am holding a copy of that Act. It is true that the draftsmen of the Bill, whether they were lazy or wise, have


simply taken the clauses wholesale out of the Act, word for word—the very point made by the right hon. Member for Down, South (Mr. Powell)—and have put them into this Bill.
Consequently, a person who is criticised under the Bill is in no wit a different person from a person criticised under the Sex Discrimination Act. In other words, women and immigrants are given, word for word, like protection. I am not saying that the section concerned is marvellous, or that it cannot be criticised. However, hon. Members should search their consciences. This House has passed the present Clause 49, which it is now sought to amend, word for word in relation to women. It would seem very curious, indeed, if the House said that it is perfectly appropriate for women but that in relation to persons of minority groups they shall not be treated in the same way.
The proposal in the new clause envisages the granting of legal aid to those appearing before the new commission. However, I have not heard any Opposition Member explain, in respect of the various types of tribunals, including industrial tribunals, how an employee who goes to a tribunal and faces an employer, who often has with him a barrister or solicitor—the employee having no right to legal aid—can cope in that situation. We must bear that in mind. I am not arguing whether or not it is a good thing not to have legal aid; I am simply suggesting that one should have similar standards.
If it is wrong to appear in front of a tribunal without legal representation because one does not have the necessary money, we must apply that principle more extensively. For example, in the Standing Committee on the Bail Bill this morning, it was proposed, by a Labour Member, that people appealing against the rejection of bail in a magistrates' court should have the right to legal aid for an appeal. The Government rejected that proposal, but the proposal received no support from Conservative Members.
Are we saying, therefore, that suddenly, in this kind of case, there should be legal aid, but in no other sort of case? All I am saying is that there should be equivalent standards throughout.

Mr. Tebbit: Although legislation has gone through the House in the past and some of my hon. Friends have opposed that legislation—the Sex Discrimination Act—that is no good reason for saying that to apply similar legislation to a different case is necessarily right. We can learn from our experience. If we did not learn from it, no law would ever be changed. In any case, I am not of the mind that that which applies to sexual relations must necessarily apply to race relations. Frankly, I am prejudiced about matters of sex. I married a woman. If I were to marry again, I would do the same again.

Mr. Lyons: No doubt the hon. Gentleman's wife would be a very fortunate woman. However, this matter has nothing to do with sexual relations, and I do not think that it is necessary to introduce that kind of sex or questions of domestic harmony into the debate.
We are discussing the procedures of an investigation. I should be horrified if any person confronted with an investigation under either the Sex Discrimination Act or this Bill did not have the opportunity to state his case. It would be in breach of the rules of natural justice. I hope that I would be the first to scream loud and long if that opportunity were not granted. However, that has nothing to do, basically, with what one thinks about women or minority groups. We are talking about the techniques of investigation. If the House were to come to the conclusion that the particular technique laid down in the Bill was wrong, in order to be consistent it would have to go back to the Sex Discrimination Act and alter the technique therein. That is the point.

Mr. Fletcher-Cooke: The hon. and learned Member for Bradford, West (Mr. Lyons) has made two very important points. Legal aid is a matter of financial priorities, as to whether one extends it or restricts it, and it is not the heart of the new clause. The heart of the new clause, which should certainly be extended to the Sex Discrimination Act at a suitable moment, is having something entitled a "formal investigation", and not just an inquiry by correspondence or anything like that. It is something—to use the noun of the Minister of State—called the full panoply of a formal investigation. That is a very serious matter. In the


publication of the report which is clearly envisaged in Clause 51(3)—
The Secretary of State shall cause the report to be published"—
in certain circumstances immense damage could be done to individuals, companies, corporations, perhaps trade unions, and all sorts of people, long before any question of an enforcement notice is reached.
The Minister of State said that the individual, the corporation or the company, or whatever it be, was perfectly well protected, because by the time one comes to the enforcement notice procedure there are certain opportunities for making representations and defending oneself. However, that is much too late. From recent events we know perfectly well that, rightly or wrongly, people's good names can be irretrievably taken away by the publication of reports on investigations.
There are examples of that all round us, whether under the Companies Act or under the Tribunals of Inquiry (Evidence) Act 1921. To say that persons involved in a formal investigation, the report of which is likely to be published, should not have a basic right of self-defence is wrong. That is why I support the clause.
It is not enough for an individual to know in general terms the charge against him. He has to know in specific terms the evidence against him, and he must have a chance to meet that specific evidence in a formal investigation.
At this stage I would not insist on legal aid, because that is a matter of financial priority. The hon. and learned Member for Bradford, West gave us examples of the way in which legal aid might be extended which have a greater priority. An individual involved in a formal investigation should have the opportunity to know who are the witnesses, and he should have a chance to confront them. Otherwise, his good name may be taken away by the publication of the report. It is a matter of natural justice. Subject to what the Minister of State may say, I hope that we shall divide.

8.30 p.m.

Mr. Jonathan Aitken: I support the new clause so ably moved by my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Royal Tunbridge Wells (Mr. Mayhew). Until I heard the Minister of

State's woefully inadequate reply, I had not intended to intervene. The clause is concerned with the protection of the rights of an individual faced with the undesirable consequences of a formal investigation.
My hon. and learned Friend the Member for Darwen (Mr. Fletcher-Cooke) was right to draw a parallel, when speaking of formal investigations, with the serious nature of the consequences that can befall individuals when formal investigations are held into companies. He was referring to the recent Lonrho report. I have no doubt that the company concerned and the individuals were big enough to be able to muster adequate legal advice and be well represented by solicitors and counsel, Here, however, we are talking about the small man. He is not getting the protection which he deserves.
In replying to my hon. and learned Friend's argument, the Minister said that the assurances given by the clause were not necessary because we were dealing here with civil rather than criminal procedure. We are in a curious twilight zone of law which is neither quite civil nor quite criminal but which is a new departure in legislative terms.
When my hon. Friend the Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Mr. Costain) asked the Minister what legal support could be expected, the hon. Gentleman replied that the person involved could get a solicitor's advice. Of course he can get a solicitor's advice—anyone can do that at any time—but does he have the right to call witnesses and to be represented by counsel? The answer is "No".
I take the case of Mr. Robert Relf, for whom I hold no brief and whose activities I in no way defend. Most British people are probably convinced that Mr. Relf was involved in criminal matters, but I understand that it was his involvement with civil matters which led him into contempt of court. He appeared to have been involved in criminal procedures, but he was not. That is the way the public see it. That is an illustration of the difficult twilight zone. The assurance given that special provisions are unnecessary because this is civil rather than criminal procedure will not do.
The hon. and learned Member for Bradford, West (Mr. Lyons) seemed to think that we should not implement the


clause becouse it would conflict with the Sex Discrimination Act. There is a certain logic in his point of view, but, as my hon. Friend the Member for Chingford (Mr. Tebbit) said, there are differences between sex discrimination and racial discrimination. Many people feel that the Sex Discrimination Act is one of the great laughing-stocks of our national life. To say that because a certain provision appears in that Act we should slavishly duplicate it in this Bill is nonsense.
I warmly support the clause. We are sent here to preserve liberties. The clause goes a small way towards preserving the liberty of the individual faced with the undesirable consequences of a formal investigation.

Mr. Stanbrook: I also support the clause. I am forced to intervene in the debate because of what was said by the hon. and learned Member for Bradford, West (Mr. Lyons), who propounded a theory which I believe to be false. His theory was that because the House has passed a Bill which is now on the statute book it must be presumed that it was passed unanimously, or that its spirit, effect, meaning, purpose and motive are binding upon every Member of Parliament. That takes no account of the experience we have had in the application of the Sex Discrimination Act or of the fact that such a measure may have been opposed by nearly 50 per cent. of the Members of the House during its passage. It takes no account of common sense. It is a completely false theory that we should not follow.
It is all the more necessary, therefore, to consider the clause in relation to the Bill itself. I do not believe in the leapfrogging theory—that because something appears in one Act we must apply it to another. That is nonsense. We should debate everything on its merits. Considering the balance in the Bill, as between the complainants and the persons complained against, I think that the Bill is very unjust indeed. The new clause tries at least to ensure justice for the person complained against.
Looking ahead to Clause 65, it provides for
Help for persons suffering discrimination".
In other words, it provides help for those who are being discriminated against.

Despite that description, the wording of the clause is that
With a view to helping a person…who considers he may have been discriminated against in contravention of this Act",
the Secretary of State may make certain regulations which assist the aggrieved person.
That assistance is available not to someone who has been discriminated against but to someone who considers he has been discriminated against—to someone who is prepared to complain, whatever the grounds and the justice of the complaint. This is a quite blatant interference on one side alone in the process of adjudication of a dispute.
In subsection (2) Clause 65 goes very far indeed, because it provides that
Where the person aggrieved questions the respondent…

(a) the question, and any reply by the respondent…shall…be admissible as evidence in the proceedings;
(b) if it appears to the court or tribunal that the respondent deliberately, and without reasonable excuse, omitted to reply within a reasonable period or that his reply is evasive or equivocal, the court or tribunal may draw any inference from that fact that it considers it just and equitable to draw, including an inference that he committed an unlawful act."
In other words, the clause is wholly on one side in an argument which probably will not yet have been put before the tribunal. It is giving extra power to one side, to the complainant, and not to the person complained about, who may be sullering much more than the complainant. It is giving extra power to him to direct questions to the other side. If the other side does not reply, or appears not to do so, without reasonable excuse, or does not do so within the time specified, there is an inference against it.
So much for the right of silence which people such as the hon. and learned Member for Bradford, West are so anxious to preserve in criminal proceedings. Here we are condemning people before they have even been tried. We are giving to the other side advantages which are not available to those who in the long run suffer to a far greater extent. But that is not all. Clause 66 provides for assistance by the commission on a truly huge scale. It can give advice and assistance of all kinds. Is this to both parties? Of course not. It is only to the person who considers that he has a complaint.
It is quite clear, simply from a superficial reading of the Bill, that it is very one-sided in regard to giving assistance to parties who may be involved in proceedings under it. For these reasons, therefore, I heartily support the new clause.

Mr. Mayhew: When I opened this debate, which has proved to be interesting and valuable, I said that we had two purposes in moving the new clause. The first was to avoid injustice, and the second was to help the investigation get at the truth.
The right hon. Member for Down, South (Mr. Powell) made a point, with which I for one had considerable sympathy, when he pointed to the danger of joining, in one body, functions that were judicial and functions that were policy. That must always be an arrangement at which we in this House should look with great suspicion. However, the Bill as a whole does this and, technically at any rate, the procedure with which we are dealing at the moment is that of an investigation. But the point made is one that obliges us to look all the more carefully at the procedure laid down in the Bill.
I do not believe that any of the instances that I ventured to give of the need for this new clause, in the context of avoiding injustice and helping the investigation to get at the truth, have been answered in the speeches made by the Minister of State or by the only Back Bencher who spoke from the Government side of the House—the hon. and learned Member for Bradford, West (Mr. Lyons). The Minister of State began by saying that protections for the individual were to be found even in the preliminary procedure because the terms of reference had to be published. I frankly do not find very much to avail the individual in that fact. The Minister went on to make his major point, which was that while the safeguards contained in the new clause might be appropriate to a criminal jurisdiction, they were not appropriate to the jurisdiction with which we are concerned in this debate, because it gives rise only to a sanction of a civil rather than a criminal nature. I find that a very strange argument. It seems to follow from that argument that repre-

sentation by counsel is an unnecessary luxury and that legal aid is quite an unnecessary advantage where a sanction is simply a civil sanction.
When we take into account, even in the context of this Bill, what could befall someone against whom a finding of a discriminatory practice, or some other infringement of the provisions in the Bill, is made I do not believe that it can be seriously argued that representation by counsel, or by solicitor, is out of place in the course of that investigation or that there should not be a right to give evidence on one's own behalf or, indeed, even the extravagance to call witnesses on one's own behalf.
In my opening speech I said that in these days of Government patronage it was no light thing to have a report made to the Secretary of State, or otherwise published, that an infringement of the Race Relations Act had been committed, or was being committed, by an employer. I pointed to the fact that unless we get rid of them, as I hope we will, qualifying bodies are obliged, by the provisions of Clause 72, to take account of any evidence suggesting that at any time a candidate with the qualification which they have it in their power to bestow was guilty of a discriminatory practice.
I pointed to the fact that matters of considerable legal complexity could arise in the course of an investigation, as recognised in Clause 50(3) which says that a person shall not be required
to give information, or produce any documents, which he could not be compelled to give in evidence, or produce, in civil proceedings before the High Court…".
I was hoping that the Minister of State might have the goodness to deal with what seemed to be a serious point. If he is not allowed legal advise, how is the ordinary person, such as a small employer running a small garage or launderette, to know whether or not the documents he has been called upon to produce under this procedure are the documents that he might be compelled by the High Court to produce? Those are points on which we had no answer, and that was very disappointing.
8.45 p.m.
Then the Minister of State said that it could not be alleged that there was no appeal against a finding of discrimination or other infringements, because of the


safeguards in Clause 58(5)(b). My hon. Friend the Member for Chingford (Mr. Tebbit) said that that was equivalent to saying "We shall not give you leave to call evidence or speak in your own behalf during the trial to establish whether you are guilty of an infringement, but before we proceed to sentence we shall ask you to make representations about whether you think you were guilty." That is an absurd way to conduct an essentially judicial procedure.
No party point is involved here. Nothing would be easier for me, as a Tory, than to condemn this Bill and all its works, and that would win me a great deal of popularity. I do not do that. I propose to vote for the Bill on Third Reading. But I believe that we have a deep responsibility never to pass legislation that makes bad law and makes for unjust judicial proceedings.
My hon. Friend the Member for Harrow, West (Mr. Page) said that only one commissioner may be appointed to conduct the investigation. That goes back to the right to challenge a demand that documents should be produced, and the fact that evidence may be given contrary to what may be compelled in the High Court.
The hon. and learned Member for Bradford, West said that we are ruled out of court because the Sex Discrimination Act contains identical provisions. That hardly speaks well of the radical approach to the problems of politics that one has learned to expect from those who profess the Socialist faith.

Mr. Edward Lyons: I said nothing of the kind. I said that a number of Conservative Members took objection to clauses that are represented exactly in the Sex Discrimination Act, yet so far as I knew they had made no objection to those earlier clauses. I did not suggest that the House could not alter in a subsequent Act what it did in a previous Act.

Mr. Mayhew: The trouble seems to be that the hon. and learned Gentleman believes that because one has made a mistake once one may never admit the fact. I was not in the House at that time. Had I been here, I like to think that I would have spotted the defect and acted accordingly.

Mr. Ronald Bell: I was in the House at that time and I can assure my hon. and learned Friend that we did not overlook those clauses. They were criticised, and criticised strongly.

Mr. Mayhew: It is not necessary to take longer on this point. Whether or not it was voted against in the Sex Discrimination Act, if it is wrong now it should be voted against now.

Mr. Budgen: My hon. and learned Friend said that he proposed to vote for the Third Reading. Was that a slip of the tongue? Did he mean to say that he proposes to vote for the new clause? Will he clear that up?

Mr. Mayhew: If it is necessary to clear it up, I gladly do so. I said that, notwithstanding what I saw as blemishes in the Bill, I proposed to vote for the Third Reading, although I would achieve a great deal of popularity if I did not.
But that is water under the bridge—[Interruption.] It will be water under the bridge. To bring what has been an enjoyable debate to an end before it gets too long, I would say that we have raised important and serious aspects of injustice in the Bill, as drafted. No answer has been given to the points made in support of the new clause, and I hope that my right hon. and hon. Friends will support it in the Lobby.

Question put, That the clause be read a Second time:—

The House divided: Ayes 67, Noes 93.

Division No. 222.
AYES
[8.52 p.m.


Alison, Michael
Bulmer, Esmond
Fraser, Rt Hon H. (Stafford &amp; St)


Arnold, Tom
Burden, F. A.
Glyn, Dr Alan


Atkins, Rt Hon H. (Spelthorne)
Carlisle, Mark
Goodhew, Victor


Bell, Ronald
Clark, Alan (Plymouth, Sutton)
Gow, Ian (Eastbourne)


Bennett, Sir Frederic (Torbay)
Clegg, Walter
Hall-Davis, A. G. F.


Biffen, John
Cope, John
Hannam, John


Biggs-Davison, John
Costain, A. P.
Hawkins, Paul


Boscawen, Hon Robert
Dean, Paul (N Somerset)
Hayhoe, Barney


Bowden, A. (Brighton, Kemptown)
Eden, Rt Hon Sir John
Holland, Philip


Brotherton, Michael
Eyre, Reginald
Hutchison, Michael Clark


Budgen, Nick
Fietcher-Cooke, Charles
Knight, Mrs Jill




Lane, David
Neubert, Michael
Taylor, R. (Croydon NW)


Langford-Holt, Sir John
Page, John (Harrow West)
Tebbit, Norman


Lawrence, Ivan
Page, Rt Hon R. Graham (Crosby)
van Straubenzee, W. R.


Le Merchant, Spencer
Parkinson, Cecil
Viggers, Peter


Letter, Jim (Beeston)
Percival, Ian
Wall, Patrick


Lloyd, Ian
Powell, Rt Hon J. Enoch
Weatherill, Bernard


Macfarlane, Nell
Rossi, Hugh (Hornsey)
Whltelaw, Rt Hon William


Maxwell-Hyslop, Robin
Sainsbury, Tim
Winterton, Nicholas


Mayhew, Patrick
Shaw, Giles (Pudsey)



Miller, Hal (Bromsgrove)
Silvester, Fred
TELLERS FOR THE AYES:


Moate, Roger
Sims, Roger
Mr. W. Benyon and


Molyneaux, James
Stanbrook, Ivor
Mr. John Corrie.


Morrison, Charles (Devizes)
Stokes, John





NOES


Anderson, Donald
Hamilton, James (Bothwell)
Prentice, Rt Hon Reg


Atkinson, Norman
Harrison, Walter (Wakefield)
Price, C. (Lewisham W)


Bagler, Gordon A. T.
Hayman, Mrs Helene
Radice, Giles


Bates, Alf
Henderson, Douglas
Rees, Rt Hon Merlyn (Leeds S)


Bean, R. E.
Hooley, Frank
Reid, George


Bidwell, Sydney
Hughes, Roy (Newport)
Robinson, Geoffrey


Blenkinsop, Arthur
Jenkins, Hugh (Putney)
Roderick, Caerwyn


Booth, Rt Hon Albert
Jenkins, Rt Hon Roy (Stechford)
Rodgers, William (Stockton)


Buchan, Norman
John, Brynmor
Rooker, J. W.


Callaghan, Jim (Middleton &amp; P)
Johnson, James (Hull West)
Ross, Stephen (Isle of Wight)


Carter-Jones, Lewis
Johnston, Russell (Inverness)
Short, Mrs Renée (Wolv NE)


Cocks, Michael (Bristol S)
Judd, Frank
Skinner, Dennis


Coleman, Donald
Kerr, Russell
Snape, Peter


Cook, Robin F. (Edin C)
Kinnock, Neil
Spearing, Nigel


Crowder, F. P.
Latham, Arthur (Paddington)
Stallard, A. W.


Cryer, Bob
Lee, John
Summerskill, Hon Dr Shirley


Davidson, Arthur
Lestor, Miss Joan (Eton &amp; Slough)
Thomas, Ron (Bristol NW)


Davis, Clinton (Hackney C)
McElhone, Frank
Tinn, James


Dormand, J. D.
MacFarquhar, Roderick
Walker, Terry (Kingswood)


Eadie, Alex
Mackenzie, Gregor
Ward, Michael


Edge, Geoff
Madden, Max
Watkinson, John


Edwards, Robert (Wolv SE)
Marshall, Jim (Leicester S)
Weitzman, David


Faulds, Andrew
Mendelson, John
Wellbeloved, James


Flannery, Martin
Miller, Dr M. S. (E Kilbride)
White, Frank R. (Bury)


Foot, Rt Hon Michael
Miller, Mrs Millie (Ilford N)
Willey, Rt Hon Frederick


Freud, Clement
Moonman, Eric
Wise, Mrs Audrey


George, Bruce
Morris, Alfred (Wythenshawe)
Wrigglesworth, Ian


Ginsburg, David
Newens, Stanley
Young, David (Bolton E)


Graham, Ted
Palmer, Arthur



Grant, John (Islington C)
Pavitt, Laurie
TELLERS FOR THE NOES:


Grimond, Rt Hon J.
Pendry, Tom
Mr. John Ellis and


Grocott, Bruce
Penhaligon, David
Mr David Stoddart.

Question accordingly negatived.

Clause 1

RACIAL DISCRIMINATION

9.0 p.m.

Mr. Mayhew: I beg to move Amendment No. 1, in page 2, line 1, leave out
'he cannot show to be'
and insert is not'.
In the amendment, we are seeking to put the burden of proof where it always should be, save in the rarest of exceptions: on the person making a complaint. The complaint that we are concerned with in the Bill is that of discrimination on racial grounds. Clause 1(1) sets out to define that, and in paragraph (a) that is easy because it defines "direct discrimination". But paragraph (b) deals with "indirect discrimination". Paragraph (a) is easy, but paragraph (b) give one a headache.
The problem can best be described by the example of an employer who, trying

to get round paragraph (a), says "I have nothing against Sikhs as storemen in my factory, but I insist that no one wears anything on his head indoors." Very few Sikhs could abide by that, but it would not cause problems to an Englishman or a West Indian.
If a persons alleges that indirect discrimination has operated against him, he must prove all the ingredients necessary to establish the complaint. There are three of them in sub-paragraphs (i), (ii) and (iii). As drafted, the clause applies the principle of placing the burden of proof on the person making the complaint in sub-paragraphs (i) and (iii), but in sub-paragraph (ii) the burden of proof is reversed and the discriminator must show that his requirement or condition is not justified. We say that there is no good ground for that. We say that a complainant who appears before an industrial tribunal is capable of making out that part of his case just as he is capable of making out the case as provided for in


sub-paragraphs (i), (iii). Under sub-paragraph (ii), he has only to show that it is no handicap to the performance of the duties of a storeman to wear a turban, and then the burden shifts to the employer to show that there is a justification for that condition, irrespective of colour, race and so on.
What is wrong with that drafting is that it specifies that the burden of proof from the beginning shall rest on the other party, the respondent to the complaint. The sub-paragraph says:
which he cannot show to be justifiable irrespective of the colour".
If a complainant has difficulty in establishing what he must establish in the ingredients of sub-paragraph (ii), he can obtain advice and extensive help from the commission, as set out in Clause 66, on whether an infringement is revealed. He can obtain advice from solicitors and counsel. Therefore, there is no hardship.
The House has an important duty to ensure that only in the rarest of cases do we legislate for the burden to be placed on a defendant.

Mr. Ronald Bell: I support the amendment of my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Royal Tunbridge Wells (Mr. Mayhew). The grounds he adduced in its support are so obvious and so persuasive that it should hardly need any commendation from anyone else. But I strongly suspect that the Government will not accept it.
One needs only to look at the clause to see the force of my hon. and learned Friend's argument. It relates to what is called indirect discrimination, which I think most people would feel is an extreme doctrine in any case. It relates to circumstances in which one cannot show that someone has discriminated, in the sense of the Bill, against a person or another community in the conditions or requirements which he has imposed in dealing with, say, an application for a job. The Bill speaks of requirements or conditions which
he applies or would apply equally to persons not of the same racial group".
Therefore, he is merely applying requirements which he would apply to anybody else. Nevertheless, he will be treated as having committed the heinous civil offence

of discrimination. The burden is upon him to show that he is innocent.
The nature of the burden is clear from the words
which he cannot show to be justifiable irrespective of the colour, race, nationality or ethnic or national origins".
There is no definition of "justifiable". Nothing is said about it. It is simply at large. What does "justifiable" mean here? It is a remarkable burden of proof to have to take upon oneself, an argumentative burden.
It is not a question of facts. One starts with the facts. The person concerned has said that he wants to employ somebody and has imposed a condition which he would impose on anybody, a white man just as much as a coloured man. But he is to be got at because it is a condition with which the coloured man for some reason—we are given no guidance—would find it more difficult to comply.
I thought that the basic concept of the Bill was that everyone should be treated as being interchangeable in this sense, that we should treat everyone exactly the same. But in this instance it is said that we must not treat people exactly the same if that works to the disadvantage of one of the minority communities.
In any event, this is an extraordinary law. It comes close to what in a previous debate we were calling positive discrimination, namely, discrimination in favour of the minority communities and aganst the indigenous inhabitants. We cannot even treat them the same. Apparently that will not do. We cannot treat them the same if that will be disadvantageous to members of the minority community. It is a scandal to have such a measure. It is getting close to the presentment of Englishry after the Norman Conquest. Basically, we must treat people exactly the same, but we may not do so if that turns out to be to the disadvantage of coloured immigrants. That is an extraordinary position in which to put our own people.
All that a complainant has to prove is that he would be at a disadvantage. When that is done the other party is guilty, unless he can prove that his action was justifiable. The meaning of "justifiable" is left at large. I do not know


how one goes about proving that it was justifiable. How does one set about proving that?
In special circumstances, but only rarely, as my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Royal Tunbridge Wells has said. the burden of proof is put on the accused person. One sort of case in which that is done is when, from the nature of the case, only the person who is accused would know the truth, when he would get away if he did not have the burden of proof put upon him. However, it is a matter that the House always scrutinises with the utmost care, a jealous care. That is because it is a savage thing to do. It can never be right to do it except upon the clearest necessity. It can never be right to do it unless it is certain that injustice will never flow from it. No one can be certain of that in these circumstances.
Why is it being done? The answer appears to be, I am afraid, that the whole of this procedure is canted in favour of the complainant immigrant. Clause 66, to which my hon. and learned Friend referred, sets out in great elaboration all the services, advice and help that will be available to the complainant. None of that assistance is available to the native respondent. Indeed, we have just been defeated on a new clause that would have allowed the native respondent to have the right of legal advice. It would have extended the legal aid scheme to the native Englishman. The Government would not have that. However, the immigrant will have such assistance all the way through. There will be forms printed for him that will be available in post offices and goodness knows where else.
Experience has shown that those who are accused of infringing the race relations legislation have found it extremely difficult, even when the case goes to the county court, to get legal aid. I do not know why that should be, but that is the position. The complainant receives help but the respondent defends himself at his peril. In this procedure the respondent has the added burden of establishing his innocence in uncharted waters. He has to prove the utterly vague and undefined provision that the requirement is justifiable even though it is accepted in limine

that he would apply exactly that requirement to anyone else.
9.15 p.m.
Legislation of this kind is put forward in this House, and is in danger of passing through the House, because we have gone so far along this road that we are beginning to accept things which, at the beginning, we would never have dreamed of accepting. First, we had the Race Relations Act 1965, then in 1968 we had an Act that went much further, and now in 1976 we have one that goes even further than that. We have got so used to the idea of kicking the British around and coddling the immigrant that we do not regard a proposal of this kind, put forward by a British Government to a British Parliament, as at all remarkable. That is the situation we have now reached.
Should we be surprised that there is deep resentment throughout the country at the operation of this legislation? No doubt the Minister of State will say "We are not talking about criminal sanctions. This will be done through the civil procedure." I remember what I said on the Second Reading of the 1968 legislation. I then pointed out that when used in this context the civil procedure is savage and vindictive. Indeed, it is far worse than the criminal procedure. I said in that debate that the British legislation was closely modelled on that in the United States. That legislation, taken under the civil procedure, was oppressive. If the criminal procedure is used one has to prove the accused's guilt beyond all reasonable doubt. Judges are very reluctant to impose a sentence of imprisonment in that class of cause, and certainly the fines are not crushing. But in the civil procedure these matters go with the balance of probability. They almost always end in an injunction, and it is a perpetual injunction. It is similar to being on probation for life. A breach at any time can put a person in prison indefinitely.
We have only to think of all the time we spend in this House trying to set exact adjustments of penalties. We recently spent a good deal of time in considering whether a £50 fine should be reduced to £10. None of that matters in this legislation. These provisions are indefinite. In theory, we can keep a man


in prison for the rest of his life because he has fallen foul of the provisions of the Race Relations Act. He defends himself at his financial peril. He must face costs and damages. The American agitators have pointed out that those costs are often crushing. It is a brave man who defends himself against the Race Relations Board. The board is financed by the Crown. If it loses, the Crown pays the costs of both sides. However, if the unfortunate British subject loses the case, he must pay the cost of both sides—in the county court and in the Court of Appeal. Indeed, the board will not hesitate to go to the House of Lords. Think of the peril of the individual and the ultimate sanction of damages, costs and injunctions which can bind him for ever and which can result in a perpetual prison sentence.
It is no good the Minister brushing this all aside and saying "Do not worry; we are not using criminal sanctions but only the civil procedure". This does not involve a claim by one subject against another in the resolution of a civil dispute; in this case the procedure is damnable, oppressive and harsh, and is employed for precisely those reasons. The native British subject has his ears pinned against the wall, and he cannot fight. He is caught up in this provision to prove his innocence in a peculiarly vague and unpromising context.
That is the case against the Government. They will waffle on, because they are not prepared to listen to the case of the British people. People outside this House, up and down the country, care very strongly indeed about the treatment meted out to them by a lot of pressure groups consisting of dedicated cranks who swap abstract phrases with each other and whose whole solicitude is concentrated on what they call the minority communities.
As far as the ordinary British person is concerned there is virtually no presentment of Englishry.
I hope that my hon. Friends will all vote for the amendment and that the Minister of State will be shamed into acquiescence, and accept it. However, I do not expect that he will, because I know that he cares nothing. I can see that from the smirk on his face. If a coloured person were in peril it would

be a different matter. As long as it is the native white population the Minister of State does not give a damn. It is an absolute scandal, the public should know about it, and the Government should stand condemned.

Mr. Edward Lyons: I am looking at the wording of Section 3(1)(b)(ii) of the Sex Discrimination Act 1975, which deals with discrimination against people of either sex who are married. It says:
which he cannot show to be justifiable irrespective of the marital status of the person to whom it is applied.
This is the subject of the amendment —the changing of the words "cannot show to be".
One needs to point this out in view of the racist content of the last speech. This matter is not something devised specially for minority groups. It was used where it was thought there might be discrimination against people because of their marital status. The hon. and learned Member for Beaconsfield (Mr. Bell) talks about race relations and takes us back through the various Acts, but he does not say anything about the Sex Discrimination Act. He should use the same standard, because married people should be given the same protection as is given to minorities.

Mr. Bell: Of course I did not refer to the Sex Discrimination Act. I said everything I had to say on that when it was passing through the House. I opposed that legislation clause by clause, and it would be an abuse of the procedure for me to talk about it again today.

Mr. Lyons: I accept that the hon. and learned Member fought rights for women as he fights any sort of rights for minority groups.

Mr. Powell: I support the amendment, which has been commended so eloquently and effectively by my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Beaconsfield (Mr. Bell).
I want to pursue the wording of the clause as raised by the amendment, but in a somewhat lower key. The first question I ask is, to whom is the respondent to show? I am sure that. the Minister of State is ready to answer me by referring to Part VIII, Clause 53, which says that


no proceedings shall lie against any person except under "this Act", that it is the procedure under Part VIII and no other which is to be applied.
One therefore arrives at Clause 57(3), which says:
As respects an unlawful act of discrimination falling within section 1(1)(b)"—
the very subsection with which we are concerned—
no award of damages shall be made if the respondent proves that the requirement or condition in question was not applied with the intention of treating the claimant unfavourably on racial grounds.
I want to know why the words, as regards both the verbs—"show" and "prove"—and the content, are different at what appears to be the business end —the enforcement Clause 57(3)—from those in Clause 1 which defines an unlawful act. It seems to me important that if the offence is not committed, if the person concerned can satisfy what is set out in Section 1(1)(b)(ii), that should also be the precise requirement applied in Clause 57.
I have a further difficulty. Clause 57 deals with the award of damages and not with the finding of an unlawful act. It may be, therefore, that the Minister of State will take us back to our previous debate and say that the person concerned will be found guilty on one ground and fined on another. I therefore invite the Minister of State, who I think understands the question I am asking—it is a genuine one—to explain the relationship between the wording and definition of Clause 1(1)(b)(ii) and the wording of Clause 57(3).
On my second question I have been helped very much by the intervention of the hon. and learned Member for Bradford, West (Mr. Lyons). I think that he put me on the track not of justifying the wording of the paragraph as it stands but of something which should at any rate rejoice the heart of the textual critic—explaining how the nonsense came about. Let us look once again at the words. They concern a requirement or condition which cannot be shown to be justified irrespective of colour, race, nationality and so on. If the person concerned can show that it is justified having regard to colour, race, nationality or ethnic or national origins, there is no offence.
I should like the Minister of State to help us with this and to illustrate some examples not of a concession but of a requirement which is justifiable only in regard to the colour, race, nationality or ethnic or national orgin of the person to whom it is applied. I can see that a concession is justifiable on these grounds —to take time off, if the person can have it off, from 6 o'clock on a Friday. I can understand that, although that is perhaps a question of religion rather than race—and the relationship of religion and race is in some cases a matter to which we have not sufficiently attended.
9.30 p.m.
But are there any requirements which can be justifiable having regard to the ethnic origins of a person? That is what the Bill says. The Bill makes nonsense unless the hon. Gentleman can provide us with a list of requirements or conditions which an employer can impose which are justifiable only having regard to the colour, race, nationality or ethnic or national origins of the person concerned. In other words, it is balderdash. But the fact that it is nonsense is not sufficient satisfaction for our curiosity.
Why do we have this nonsense? The hon. and learned Member for Bradford, West confirmed my suspicions. I had noted the "[S.4.]" in the margin of Clause 1. It is of course, from the Sex Discrimination Act. It is the standard form. The draftsmen said "This is an anti-discrimination Bill. We shall slap in all the regular clauses."
There is no difficulty in instancing requirements which are justifiable having regard to marital status but which would be unjustifiable in any other context. This is an illustration of what is happening in legislation. Words are transferred from one anti-discrimination measure, where they make sense, to another, where they make no sense.
So much for the suggestion that we might be estopped, when we have passed a sufficient number of anti-discrimnation Bills, from ever cavilling at what is put in the next one. It might just be that, apart from general considerations, there are differences between sex and race or religion and sex. Therefore, we are justified in trying to understand the Bill and the hon. and learned Members for Royal Tunbridge Wells (Mr. Mayhew)


and Beaconsfield would have been jusfied in moving and supporting this amendment even if there had been a couple of dozen anti-discrimination Bills in the past.
I hope that after refreshment, which other hon. Members will give him the opportunity to digest, the Minister of State will be able to solve my difficulties and questions.

Mr. Stanbrook: I assure the hon. and learned Member for Bradford, West (Mr. Lyons) that I was on the Standing Corn-mince that considered the Sex Discrimination Bill. I spoke against it and did all I could to prevent the passage of the clause to which he referred. I cannot see the logic of the hon. and learned Gentleman's objection to our amendment.
It is something of a disgrace to have in our law anything that says that the burden of proof shall be on the defendant. English law knows very few cases in which that burden is placed upon the defendant rather than upon the person bringing the accusation.
Judges tend to apply the law to lean against any interpretation that would result in the burden being placed upon the defendant and, as a result, the courts say that unless the burden is clearly and unambiguously expressed as being on the defendant, no words in any statute shall be construed as placing the burden upon them.
We have certain well-known exceptions to that rule—for instance, where an alleged thief is found in possession of stolen property soon after it has been stolen. No doubt the public would agree with English common law, which is based upon common sense, that the thief shall be required to give an explanation otherwise it shall be presumed that he is the thief, or at least the receiver of stolen goods.
Similarly, in the case of a person found to be carrying an offensive weapon—a weapon that is offensive per se, for instance, a loaded pistol—one takes for granted his carrying it in circumstances in which a policeman is entitled to ask him why he is carrying it. The burden is on him to show that he is carrying it lawfully—that his carrying of the gun is authorised by law. If not, there is a

presumption that he is carrying it contrary to law.
However, those are definite exceptions to the general principles of our law that have applied for many years, and with a great deal of common sense, too. They also apply to circumstances in which there is no question of any mature judgment being brought into play, no balancing of interests and working things out in accordance with any rule or in the circumstances of the case. Those are cases that must occur to the average man as being justified when one says that because only the defendant knows the circumstances and because he has been found in circumstances which point in a certain direction, therefore it is up to him to refute the accusation levelled against him.
For that reason, it is an entirely different class of case from that which is referred to in the clause, because the word here is "justifiable". As has been said in the debate, the word "justifiable" is a very vague word. To whom is a thing justifiable? By what standards can a thing be judged justifiable? What sort of considerations come into play? This is not a criminal law, so we do not know precisely what the word "justifiable" means in any event. It is not even related to existing criminal law. It is one of those vague standards that apply to social affairs and which increasingly, and unhappily, have been brought into the realms of human relations.
I entirely support the amendment. It would be quite wrong for us to allow the wording of the clause to stand as it is. We should reverse the wording so as to bring the operation of the clause into line with English common law as we have known it in the past.

Mr. Michael Brotherton: The clause contains the phrase:
justifiable irrespective of the colour, race, nationality or ethnic".
What is the sort of law that we are to put into operation now that does not discriminate between men who are black, white, brown or any other colour? What is a man's race? Is he African, European, or American? Whatever else he is going to be, that is his race. What is his nationality? Is it English, Irish, Scottish or Welsh?
In our own islands here, we have in Northern Ireland people who discriminate between themselves—Protestants and Catholics. They are people of a white nation themselves who still continue to fight each other. They remain totally and utterly different as people do in Cyprus and many other nations. Yet we are trying tonight to say that we cannot discriminate and that we cannot say that one nation is white, one is black, and one is yellow. Of course we can do that. There is absolutely no question whatever that there is tremendous discrimination between all the peoples of this world.
The late Lord Fisher of Lambeth was cirticised greatly when he said that God believed that all people were equal in his sight but that they were different in His view. That is utterly true. However, we are trying to say to the people of Britain that all who live here are absolutely equal. That is nonsense. The people in my constituency of Louth, and people in Grimsby and Lincolnshire know that any foreign person, whatever his colour may be, is different from the indigenous native population of Britain.
We who are the native, indigenous population of the country have the right to say to the legislators "We shall have no more of this. We are the people of England, we are the people who have lived in this land all our lives. We shall have no more of the nonsense that people are equal with us, because we are the people who live here."

Mr. John: It may be for the convenience of the House if I deal with the amendment moved by the hon. and learned Member for Royal Tunbridge Wells (Mr. Mayhew) and answer some of the questions directed to me by the right hon. Member for Down, South (Mr. Powell). In doing so I must, I suppose, make a passing reference to the hon. and learned Member for Beaconsfield (Mr. Bell). He made several points, one of which was taken up in a rather curious fashion by the hon. Member for Louth (Mr. Brotherton).
Reference was made to the phrase "native and indigenous". An increasing number of members of the minority communities in this country are both indigenout and native to the country. It is stretching language beyond credulity to pretend that there are not people among the

minority communities who were born in this country.
The hon. and learned Member for Beaconsfield erected a great theory upon the power of the State, as represented by the Race Relations Board, against the individual. The Bill makes a profound change, in that it puts on the individual complainant the onus of bringing his complaint instead of interposing the Race Relations Board. Therefore, that argument is without foundation.

Mr. Ronald Bell: The Minister of State must realise that I described the situation under the 1968 Act still in force. The Race Relations Board disappears under the Bill. What I said was in relation to my speech in the Second Reading debate on the 1968 Act.

Mr. John: The hon. and learned Gentleman said that it was a brave man who would take on the Race Relations Board. He was extrapolating the sense of that remark to the future, and it is neither right nor proper that he should do so.
The hon. and learned Gentleman dealt with the civil balance of proof. If the balance of probabilities falls on one side, exactly the same balance of proof is needed as for anyone who is required to discharge any other civil obligation. It is a matter of the balance of probabilities.
Indirect discrimination is a new concept, and for that reason right hon. and hon. Gentlemen who did not serve on the Committee and did not devote many hours to the consideration of this matter find it difficult to understand. The burden of proof is divided. Under Clause 1(1)(b) the complainant has to prove that there is a condition or requirement which operates disproportionately to the disadvantage of members of a particular racial group. Consideration then has to be given to the question whether that condition, which operates disproportionately disadvantageously, is justified.
The condition has to be justifiable not in respect of the racial group or the individual but in respect of the job of work. If in Cardiff there were to be a condition that bus drivers should be Welsh speaking, that would not be justifiable in respect of that job in that part of the country.
9.45 p.m.
The words in sub-paragraph (ii) follow the course they do because it would be


possible otherwise to argue that a racial basis for discrimination is sufficient justification. As I have said, what it means is that the condition must be justifiable according to the position or the condition which brings about a disproportionate discrimination.

Mr. Powell: Is the Minister of State therefore saying that the Bill is asserting that it is or can be justifiable to apply a requirement or condition with regard to the colour, race, nationality, and so on, of the person to whom it is applied? How can that be justifiable, and how can we write into an Act of Parliament that it is?

Mr. John: We are not writing into an Act of Parliament that a condition on the ground of colour, race, nationality or ethnic origin is justifiable. What we are saying is that the person to whom the onus then shifts, after the complainant has proved that it is disproportionately disadvantageous, must show that the condition that he has imposed, which gives rise to the disadvantage, is justifiable irrespective of colour, race and so on. He must, in other words, show that it is a justifiable condition.
Clearly, there are some quite obvious examples in which certain conditions are imposed before employment is taken up. There are some conditions which are imposed for a job and which are justifiable by reason of that job. A particular condition or attribute may be necessary before the job is undertaken. But some conditions can be imposed on the job in such a way as to appear to be equal when in fact they are unjustifiable by the nature of the job. Such conditions would be unjustifiable under subparagraph (ii).

Mr. Powell: I do not think there is any difference of intention. It is a difficulty of construction. If the paragraph had stopped after "justifiable", or had contained such words as "justifiable having regard to the nature of the employment", I would understand. But it seems to me that by adding the word "irrespective" and the words that follow one is necessarily implying that certain requirements could be justifiable having regard to the colour, race, and so one. I apprehend that that probably was the case in the correponding provision of the Sex Discrimination Bill, where clearly

certain requirements are justified having regard to marital condition

Mr. John: There is no difference of intent, and I do not see that difficulty to which the right hon. Member refers. The person concerned—shall we say the employer, although it is not exclusively the employer; I merely use him as an example—must show that any condition imposed is justifiable for the post,
irrespective of the colour, race, nationality or ethnic or national origins".
In other words, if those words were not in the clause, such a condition could be justified upon that basis. That is what the subsection seeks to do.

Mr. Ronald Bell: Mr. Ronald Bellrose—

Mr. John: I must make my point. The hon. and learned Gentleman has not been unduly interrupted by me. For the sake of this very complex concept, I really must have continuity. If I give way all the time I shall not be able to obtain it.
The right hon. and learned Gentleman asks to whom it must be justifiable. The answer is, either to the industrial tribunal or to the county court, because those are the forums before which the cases are brought by the complainant.
The hon. and learned Gentleman went on to mention Clause 57(3), and asked how and why it differed in its language and wording from Clause 1, and in particular, subsection (1)(b)(ii). The answer is that if under that subsection the person can show the condition to be justifiable, he has no liability under the legislation, although it is perhaps disproportionately disadvantageous. In other words, he is exculpated from liability completely. If, on the other hand, he cannot show it to be justifiable but nevertheless under Clause 57(3), which is a narrower concept and is intended to be narrower, he can show that he did not intend to treat the claimant unfavourably on racial grounds, although a finding of liability is made against him he is not then condemned to pay damages.

Mr. Hugh Fraser: Could the hon. Gentleman put himself into the position of a county court or industrial tribunal and explain what the concept of disproportion means? It is a question which undoubtedly those bodies will have to decide. Frankly, what


the hon. Gentleman has so far said makes it totally unclear what the meaning of "disproportionate" is, and yet it is on this that the case will turn.

Mr. John: The hon. and learned Member for Royal Tunbridge Wells used a very obvious example when he opened the debate. I do not think that the right hon. Member for Stafford and Stone (Mr. Fraser) heard him, and I recommend the right hon. Gentleman to read that speech. Clearly, there are some ways in which a racial group could be disproportionately disadvantageously affected. For example, if a person without justification lays down a condition that he will not allow anyone to wear headgear in the performance of a particular job, that would be disadvantageous in a disproportionate fashion to Sikhs. That is only one of a number of examples. I recommend the right hon. Member for Stafford and Stone to read the report of proceedings of the Committee stage of the Bill, when this matter was gone into at very great length and thoroughly analysed. He will find it instructive, and I hope he will find it educative and interesting.
The position is that, once a claimant has proved that there is disproportionate disadvantage, the onus then switches to the employer. I come back again to the employer as an example, although he is not an exclusive category. The onus then switches to the employer to prove that the condition that he instituted was justifiable. The problem is that the hon. and learned Member for Royal Tunbridge Wells, in moving the amendment, said that it was very easy for the burden of proof of a claimant to be discharged. I would doubt whether that was so in all but the most obvious cases. What we are saying, therefore, is that when the claimant has proved disproportionate disadvantage it should be for the person who has imposed the condition to explain why it has no purpose. That follows from one of the points made by the hon. Member for Orpington (Mr. Stanbrook).
We believe that this switching of the onus is necessary in order to give the complainant a reasonable chance of succeeding under the Bill. I do not say that the position is one which should give an automatic right of success.

Indeed, the hon. and learned Member for Beaconsfield talked about legislation to protect minority communities. What I pointed out in Committee, and what I have pointed out again, is that this is legislation to protect all communities against whom discrimination is practised. There is nothing in the Bill which limits that protection to minority communities. It would be qute wrong if the impression went out from this House that this was so.
I believe that the Bill, as framed, is necessary. I believe that the clause is necessary and I believe that the amendment, if carried, would place an undue onus upon the claimant. I therefore hope that the House will reject it.

Mr. Mayhew: I said that it was only in the rarest cases that we thought it proper to legislate so as to provide that someone at the sharp end of proceedings in any court or tribunal had to show that he was not guilty or was not infringing some legal right or requirement. One had only to listen to examples given by my hon. Friend the Member for Orpington (Mr. Stanbrook) of those rare cases in our law in which the burden is put upon the defendant to see how different from those instances—such as the carrying of a loaded pistol in a public place—is the matter with which we are concerned. It is miles away.
The reason why we should do this so rarely is that it goes against our basic principles of justice to allow a complainant to require that someone should prove that he is not guilty of an infringement. That, in paragraph (b)(ii), is what the clause does.
There are considerable obscurities in the clause. As the Minister said, the concept of indirect discrimination is new. But the very fact that that the drafting can give rise to the difference of opinion which has existed between the Minister of State and someone of the intellectual acuity of the right hon. Member for Down, South (Mr. Powell) shows what we have brought about. As it happens, I think that the Minister's interpretation is right, but the important point remains that without the amendment we are legislating to make a respondent show that he is not guilty.
The Minister's justification came down to shifting the burden of proof so as to give a complainant a reasonable chance of success. That does not wash. As I said, Clause 66 gives substantial rights of


access for a complainant to advice from the commission on the nature, the strength or the weakness of his case and on the law. Having regard to the sort of instances which my hon. Friend the Member for Orpington gave of those rare cases in which we shift the burden of proof to a defendant, when one sees how separate they are from this matter and weighs the case against the Minister's justification one

Question accordingly negatived.

It being after Ten o'clock, further consideration of the Bill, as amended, stood adjourned.

sees that it is clear that the amendment should be made. Therefore, I trust that my right hon. and hon. Friends will support this view of the matter in the Lobby.

Quesion put, That the amendment be made: —

The House divided: Ayes 66, Noes 94.

Division No. 223.]
AYES
[9.58 p.m.


Alison, Michael
Gow, Ian (Eastbourne)
Page, Rt Hon R. Graham (Crosby)


Arnold, Tom
Hall-Davis, A. G. F.
Parkinson, Cecil


Atkins, Rt Hon H. (Spelthorne)
Hannam, John
Percival, Ian


Bell, Ronald
Hawkins, Paul
Powell, Rt Hon J. Enoch


Bennett, Sir Frederic (Torbay)
Hayhoe, Barney
Rossi, Hugh (Hornsey)


Biffen, John
Holland, Philip
Sainsbury, Tim


Biggs-Davison, John
Hutchison, Michael Clark
Shaw, Giles (Pudsey)


Boscawen, Hon Robert
Knight, Mrs Jill
Silvester, Fred


Bowden, A. (Brighton, Kemptown)
Lane, David
Sims, Roger


Brocklebank-Fowler, C.
Langford-Holt, Sir John
Spicer, Michael (S Worcester)


Brotherton, Michael
Lawrence, Ivan
Stanbrook, Ivor


Budgen, Nick
Lawson, Nigel
Stokes, John


Bulmer, Esmond
Le Marchant, Spencer
Taylor, R. (Croydon NW)


Burden, F. A.
Lloyd, Ian
Tebbit, Norman


Carlisle, Mark
Macfarlane, Neil
van Straubenzee, W. R.


Chalker, Mrs Lynda
Maxwell-Hyslop, Robin
Viggers, Peter


Clegg, Walter
Mayhew, Patrick
Wall, Patrick


Cope, John
Miller, Hal (Bromsgrove)
Whltelaw, Rt Hon William


Corrie, John
Moate, Roger
Winterton, Nicholas


Dean, Paul (N Somerset)
Molyneaux, James



Eden, Rt Hon Sir John
Morrison, Charles (Devizes)
TELLERS FOR THE AYES:


Eyre, Reginald
Neubert, Michael
Mr, W, Benyon and


Fraser, Rt Hon H. (Stafford &amp; St)
Page, John (Harrow West)
Mr. Jim Lester,


Goodhew, Victor






NOES


Anderson, Donald
Harrison, Walter (Wakefield)
Price, C. (Lewisham W)


Atkinson. Norman
Hayman, Mrs Helene
Radice, Giles


Bagier, Gordon A. T.
Henderson, Douglas
Rees, Rt Hon Merlyn (Leeds S)


Bates, Alf
Hooley, Frank
Reid, George


Bean, R. E.
Hughes, Roy (Newport)
Robinson, Geoffrey


Bidwell, Sydney
Jenkins, Hugh (Putney)
Roderick, Caerwyn


Blenkinsop, Arthur
Jenkins, Rt Hon Roy (Stechtord)
Rooker, J. W.


Booth, Rt Hon Albert
John, Brynmor
Ross, Stephen (Isle of Wight)


Buchan, Norman
Johnson, James (Hull West)
Short, Mrs Renée (Wolv NE)


Callaghan, Jim (Middleton &amp; P)
Johnston, Russell (Inverness)
Silkin, Rt Hon S. C. (Dulwich)


Carter-Jones, Lewis
Judd, Frank
Skinner, Dennis


Cocks, Michael (Bristol S)
Kerr, Russell
Snape, Peter


Coleman, Donald
Kinnock, Neil
Spearing, Nigel


Cook, Robin F. (Edin C)
Latham, Arthur (Paddington)
Stallard, A. W.


Crowder, F. P.
Lee, John
Stoddart, David


Cryer, Bob
Lestor, Miss Joan (Eton &amp; Slough)
Summerskill, Hon Dr Shirley


Davidson, Arthur
Lyons, Edward (Bradford W)
Thomas, Ron (Bristol NW)


Davis, Clinton (Hackney C)
McElhone, Frank
Tinn, James


Dormand, J. D.
MacFarquhar, Roderick
Tomlinson, John


Eadie, Alex
Mackenzie, Gregor
Walker, Harold (Doncaster)


Edge, Geoff
Madden, Max
Walker, Terry (Kingswood)


Edwards, Robert (Wolv SE)
Marshall, Jim (Leicester S)
Ward, Michael


Ellis, John (Brigg &amp; Scun)
Mendelson, John
Watkinson, John


Faulds, Andrew
Miller, Dr M. S. (E Kilbride)
Wellbeloved, James


Fitt, Gerard (Belfast, W)
Miller, Mrs Millie (ilford N)
Willey, Rt Hon Frederick


Flannery, Martin
Moonman, Eric
Wise, Mrs Audrey


Foot, Rt Hon Michael
Morris, Alfred (Wythenshawe)
Wrigglesworth, Ian


George, Bruce
Newens, Stanley
Young, David (Bolton E)


Ginsburg, David
O'Halloran, Michael



Graham, Ted
Palmer, Arthur
TELLERS FOR THE NOES:


Grant, John (Islington C)
Pavitt, Laurie
Mr. Thomas Cox and


Grocott, Bruce
Pendry, Tom
Mr. Frank R. White.


Hamilton, James (Bothwell)
Penhallgon, David

Orders of the Day — BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE

Motion made, and Question put,
That the Race Relations Bill may be proceeded with at this day's Sitting, though opposed, until any hour.—[Mr. Walter Harrison.]

The House divided:Ayes 90,Noes 41.

Division No, 224.]
AYES
[10.10 p.m.


Anderson, Donald
Hay man, Mrs Helene
Radice, Giles


Atkinson, Norman
Henderson, Douglas
Rees, Rt Hon Merlyn (Leeds S)


Bates, Alf
Hooley, Frank
Reid, George


Bean, R. E.
Hughes, Roy (Newport)
Robinson, Geoffrey


Bidwell, Sydney
Jenkins, Hugh (Putney)
Roderick, Caerwyn


Blenkinsop, Arthur
Jenkins, Rt Hon Roy (Stechford)
Rodgers, William (Stockton)


Booth, Rt Hon Albert
John, Brynmor
Rooker, J. W.


Buchan, Norman
Johnson, James (Hull West)
Ross, Stephen (Isle of Wight)


Callaghan, Jim (Middleton &amp; P)
Judd, Frank
Short, Mrs Renée (Wolv NE)


Carter-Jones, Lewis
Kerr, Russell
Silkin, Rt Hon S. C. (Dulwich)


Cocks, Michael (Bristol S)
Kinnock, Neil
Skinner, Dennis


Coleman, Donald
Latham, Arthur (Paddington)
Spearing, Nigel


Cook, Robin F. (Edin C)
Lee, John
Stallard, A. W.


Cox, Thomas (Tooting)
Lestor, Miss Joan (Eton &amp; Slough)
Stoddart, David


Crowther, Stan (Rotherham)
Lyons, Edward (Bradford W)
Summerskill, Hon Dr Shirley


Cryer, Bob
McElhone, Frank
Thomas, Ron (Bristol NW)


Davidson, Arthur
MacFarquhar, Roderick
Tinn, James


Davis, Clinton (Hackney C)
Mackenzie, Gregor
Tomlinson, John


Dormand, J. D.
Madden, Max
Walker, Harold (Doncaster)


Eadie, Alex
Marshall, Jim (Leicester S)
Walker, Terry (Kingswood)


Edwards. Robert (Wolv SE)
Mendelson, John
Ward, Michael


Ellis, John (Brigg &amp; Scun)
Miller, Dr M. S. (E Kilbride)
Watkinson, John


Faulds, Andrew
Miller, Mrs Millie (Ilford N)
White, Frank R. (Bury)


Fitt, Gerard (Belfast, W)
Morris, Alfred (Wythenshawe)
Willey, Rt Hon Frederick


Flannery, Martin
Newens, Stanley
Wise, Mrs Audrey


Foot, Rt Hon Michael
O'Halloran, Michael
Wrigglesworth, Ian


George, Bruce
Palmer, Arthur
Young, David (Bolton E)


Ginsburg, David
Pavitt, Laurie



Grant, John (Islington C)
Pendry, Tom
TELLERS FOR THE AYES:


Grocott, Bruce
Penhallgon, David
Mr. Peter Snape and


Hamilton, James (Bothwell)
Price, C. (Lewisham W)
Mr. Ted Graham.


Harrison, Walter (Wakefield)






NOES


Bell, Ronald
Hayhoe, Barney
Powell, Rt Hon J. Enoch


Bennett, Sir Frederic (Torbay)
Holland, Philip
Sainsbury, Tim


Biggs-Davison, John
Johnston, Russell (Inverness)
Sims, Roger


Boscawen, Hon Robert
Knight, Mrs Jill
Spicer, Michael (S Worcester)


Bowden, A. (Brighton, Kemptown)
Langford-Holl, Sir John
Stanbrook, Ivor


Bulmer, Esmond
Lawrence, Ivan
Stokes, John


Burden, F. A.
Lawson, Nigel
Taylor, R. (Croydon NW)


Cope, John
Lloyd, Ian
Tebbit, Norman


Dean, Paul (N Somerset)
Maxwell-Hyslop, Robin
Viggers, Peter


Fletcher-Cooke, Charles
Moate, Roger
Wall, Patrick


Fraser, Rt Hon H. (Stafford &amp; St)
Molyneaux, James
Winterton, Nicholas


Goodhew, Victor
Morrison, Charles (Devizes)



Gow, Ian (Eastbourne)
Neubert, Michael
TELLERS FOR THE NOES:


Hannam, John
Page, John (Harrow West)
Mr. Nick Budgen and


Hawkins, Paul
Page, Rt Hon R. Graham (Crosby)
Mr. Michael Brotherton.

Question accordingly agreed to.

RACE RELATIONS BILL

As amended (in the Standing Committee), further considered.

Clause 12

QUALIFYING BODIES

Mr. Ronald Bell: I beg to move Amendment No. 4, in page 8, line 18, leave out 'or facilitates'.
The purpose and purport of this amendment is to narrow the effect of a particularly vocious and evil clause in the Bill, namely, that which applies its restrictive processes to what are called qualifying bodies. That means bodies which qualify for the oppressive treatment which the Government have decided to mete out to those who do not accord with their views on this controversial matter.
Clause 12(1) states:
It is unlawful for an authority or body which can confer an authorisation or qualification which is needed for, or facilitates, engagement in a particular profession or trade to discriminate against a person
in the three ways then set out. They relate to the terms on which it—"it" being the body or authority—is prepared to confer on him that authorisation or qualification, that in turn being one which is needed for, or facilitates, engagement. Secondly, it talks of refusing or deliberately omitting to grant the application. Thirdly, it speaks of withdrawing from him or varying the terms on which he holds that authorisation or qualification.
My amendment seeks to ensure that this restriction applies only to bodies or authorities which can confer authorisation or qualifications needed for engagement in a particular profession or trade and does not apply to qualifications which merely facilitate engagement in a particular profession or trade.
The effect of excluding the words "or facilitates" is to extend the application of the clause outside the ordinary professional or qualifying bodies, which in some cases have statutory existence and in other cases offer qualifications which may be necessary by law for the practice of particular occupations, to bodies which may be purely private bodies with no official status at all and which do not

grant qualifications needed for any occupation but grant merely qualifications which are useful or helpful.
The words "authorisation or qualifications" are defined in subsection (3) and are given wide meaning. We are told that those words include "recognition", which is very different from giving a formal qualification, "registration, enrolment"—a very odd kind of authorisation or qualification, because mere enrolment is usually the beginning of a qualification or something of the kind—and then "approval and certification". The word "approval" is like the word "recognition". It is a very wide word and would cover a whole range of bodies and activities.
10.30 p.m.
The sort of bodies which would be covered by "or facilitates" include the Marylebone Cricket Club, the Pony Club, the Jockey Club and the St. Andrew's Golf Club, the Royal and Ancient. All these bodies are in the field of sport, and have no authority at all and no official standing or status. But they all enjoy very considerable prestige and reputation and have established for themselves a position in the life of the country which is most honourable and highly recognised. But they are totally unofficial. They are private clubs, and up to now they have proceeded in an entirely informal way.
I believe that my right hon. Friend the Member for Penrith and The Border (Mr. Whitelaw) was captain of the Royal and Ancient at one time, and he will know what one has to do to get into that club. For all I know, playing golf may have something to do with it, but there may be other factors which enter into it as well.
All these bodies are in the penumbra of qualifying bodies, but they are private societies. One may pay as much or as little attention as one wants to their requirements or qualifications. They are not compulsory in any way. One can play a good game of golf without caring a row of pins about the Royal and Ancient. Some people ride horses. I do not; I regard them as most dangerous animals. One can be bitten at the front, kicked at the back and fall off the middle. However, some people ride them, backwards


or forwards, but that does not mean that they have to be members of either the Pony Club, the Jockey Club or the National Hunt Club.
I want to leave out the words "or facilitate" because they bring in all those bodies and force them to operate in accordance with the views of the Labour Party at its last seaside conference—views which it now proposes to impose on everyone.

Mr. Ivan Lawrence: What relationship does being a member of the Pony Club or the Jockey Club have to the requirement in the clause for the body or authority to confer authorisation or qualification for engagement in a particular profession or trade? Surely, membership of the Pony Club or Jockey Club, however laudable, is neither a profession or a trade.

Mr. Bell: That is a very interesting question, but if I tried to answer it fully I would take up more time than I wish. The answer is that professionalism has penetrated far into all sports. I do not know whether pot-hunting is a profession, but it is deeply established in the riding of ponies, and as far as the Jockey Club is concerned it gives a certification to jockeys. [Hon. Members: "Turn round."] I am addressing my remarks to Mr. Deputy Speaker. In times past, disciplinary proceedings were taken against an hon. Member for glaring at hon. Members opposite instead of glaring at the Chair.
My hon. Friend asked to what extent the granting of recognition and qualifications affected a profession or trade. A jockey does not need certification by the Jockey Club, but it certainly facilitates his employment in horse racing. I could organise a horse race and anyone who wanted to do so could ride in it. The Jockey Club would not recognise him as a jockey and might even refuse to allow him to take part in recognised races. Because the recognised races would have far greater esteem than mine, the jockeys would find that membership of the Jockey Club facilitated their advancement in that profession.

Mr. John Cope: Before my hon. and learned Friend leaves that point, may I ask

whether he is aware that a profession is defined in Clause 78 as including "any vocation or occupation"? But it does not say any occupation for profit or benefit. I take that to mean that an occupation in something which occupies one's time.

Mr. Bell: I should have remembered that, but we spent so long on the earlier debates this evening—

Hon. Members: Address the Chair.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: I think that the hon. and learned Gentleman should continue glaring at the Chair.

Mr. Bell: I apologise, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I turned to my hon. Friend who raised the point with me. He is quite right. There is a definition, which I had originally noticed but had forgotten to mention, which widens the meaning of "profession" very greatly by saying that it includes "any vocation or occupation".

Mr. Nicholas Winterton: Does my hon. and learned Friend accept that being a member of the Pony Club, and obtaining the qualifications which it gives in horsemanship, facilitates a member later in life becoming an instructor or instructress in horsemanship? My hon. and learned Friend's point is therefore very apt.

Mr. Bell: The words that I am proposing to leave out are "or facilities". I have to prove that membership is not necessary but that it facilitates, which is the point my hon. Friends were helping me to make. My instances tended to concentrate on the world of horses and golf because these are examples which spring fairly easily to mind. I am sure that there are many other private societies in all areas of human activity that provide something which can be a certificate, recognition, enrichment or approval which would facilitate the person concerned in some occupation or venture. These words hinge on to that nexus of the consequences of the penal provisions of the Bill.

Mr. Tebbit: Does not my hon. and learned Friend consider that the freedom of the City of London would facilitate somebody getting into certain professions or other activities in the City and would,


therefore, fall within the provisions of the Bill as drafted?

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I fear that some hon. Members are in danger of putting the hon. and learned Member for Beaconsfield (Mr. Bell) into orbit around his amendment.

Mr. Bell: I was going to say that I did not think my hon. Friend the Member for Chingford (Mr. Tebbit) was right, but I appreciate his anxiety to help me.
We are dealing with occupations, vocations and professions. Retention of the words I seek to omit would mean that private bodies will be subject to all the coercive provisions of the Bill. The Minister of State did not give way to me when he was replying to the last amendment. He said that the civil procedure which looks into these private bodies was not something to which my remarks would apply. But the coercive elements of the Bill apply to these bodies, and it is necessary to understand the nature of these procedures. They are penal and civil. If they were criminal, it would be a relatively minor matter. If they were civil and related to disputes between people, they would be relatively innocuous. But the fact that they are penal in nature and civil form means that they are intensely oppressive. That is the point the Minister of State did not answer. Neither will he answer it when he replies to this debate. He has no answer.

Mrs. Knight: Has my hon. and learned Friend considered the possibility, which worries me, that the clause might apply to educational bodies? Might they not be in trouble if they did not "facilitate" by the granting of educational qualifications?

Mr. Bell: Clause 12(4) states:
'Subsection (1) does not appy to discrimination which is rendered unlawful by section 17 or 18.
Those sections refer to educational qualifications. The mischief of the clause does not extend to education.
My amendment is not directed at some minor point which is of no great importance. A very fierce provision procedure is brought in, by the words I seek to omit, against bodies which ought not to be subject to this kind of prescription by the State. It is a gross encroachment on the private arrangements of the people.
Clubs like the Marylebone Cricket Club have become so well known that they have a sort of status, but the MCC is one of a number of private clubs dealing with matters which are peripheral to the main business of life—even though cricket has become very professional—where the widest degree of freedom ought to be taken for granted. Yet all the paraphernalia of the Equal Opportunities Commission, proceedings in the county court and inquiries under section 68—all those kinds of things with their oppressive accompaniments such as the printed form and the outrageous interrogation—is applied to bodies of that sort.
10.45 p.m.
I am trying to be extremely serious about this matter, though it is pretty hopeless because the Minister of State is not really listening. In any case, he has shown himself insusceptible of persuasion. That is the trouble. Unless the Secretary of State is present personally on the Front Bench, one may advance the most alluring arguments and marshal all kinds of considerations but to no avail. The Minister of State has no authority to be persuaded. He cannot say "Yes, I think that this goes a little far. I shall accept the amendment". Suppose that I persuaded him with my argument. It would not help me, because he has not the authority from the Secretary of State to be persuaded. This gives our proceedings an unreality which is most unfortunate in a matter of this kind.
This 1976 Bill carries the whole process of application—I shall not say enforcement—very much further in most directions than either of the previous Acts. I accept that the enforcement in one sense is toned down because it is no longer a public board that initiates proceedings. To that extent there is a mitigation. However, the boundary of application of the Bill when it is enacted will be very greatly widened. What I have picked on and subsection (2), to which we come next, are the extreme points of extension of encroachment of this form of prescription in to the institutions of the national life.
There has been some litigation about this. I think that it was in relation to sex discrimination and the Jockey Club. Lord Denning gave some views in the Court of Appeal. Normally I admire him very greatly, but I had reservations


about those views. However, there never was a formal decision because the whole thing was settled by agreement.
It is very dangerous to start on the road on which I fear that case would have started us if it had really gone to judgment and which the Bill institutionalises—the road of bringing all these private bodies into a sort of public responsibility because they have been outstanding and successful in their own spheres. If one starts something and does it well and it gets established and highly esteemed, someone wants to come along and lay down one's public duties in an Act of Parliament. The Minister will say "Why not? Once people become good and have reached the point at which what they decide, say and think affects a considerable number of other people, they ought to be subject to the law and to exercise their discretion as a legal discretion." That is an outrageous argument.
I am anticipating what the Minister will say, but that is almost inevitably what he will say. He will say that no one can say that Parliament is not entitled to tell people who have the required certifications in what manner they should administer them. I do not agree because like some of my hon. Friends, I disagree with the Bill wholly. That is one argument.
However, when one leaves the compulsory sphere altogether and comes into what I call the penumbra, it is said that these are esteemed bodies and that their approval is something to which we should pay a great deal of attention, and that, therefore, we shall lay down the rules according to which they shall administer themselves. But no, it is not quite that. They may lay down rules only in one respect. They may be as capricious as they like in all other respects, but in one respect alone they shall be prescribed—that is, in relation to race, nationality or ethnic group.
There the dogmatism of the embattled Left comes in. The Left is badly bitten by this colour obsession. The Left does not want to apply the rules to anything other than discrimination on grounds of colour, race or sex. These bodies may go their own way, they may develop in the directions which appeal to them. They may be capricious or unreasonable. There is nothing against that. In these

respects only, the whole weight of the processes of Parliament is brought to bear upon them.
The Labour Party is obsessed with these matters. It may be said that that obsession is shared by some Opposition Members. It is. I cannot help that, although I would if I could. I have always taken a libertarian line on sex, colour and race. I have applied that line even to realms where some people might not follow me—for example, abortion and buggery. I take the view that the State should intervene in this dominating and overriding way with the greatest reluctance and the greatest hesitation and should never interfere with the operations of the private individual, private societies and private clubs unless the case is so strong that the stability of society is threatened if it does not do so. Unless we take that line, we are lost.
We cannot say that we shall prescribe in relation to colour, race and sex and that everything else shall be at large, because something else always comes along. At the time of the 1968 Act I said that the next thing would be a Sex Discrimination Act, and it was. Last Session an hon. Member introduced a Bill which provided that it should be a civil offence to discriminate on the ground of age.
What is laughed at as preposterous by precedent becomes accepted. It is not accepted by us, but is is accepted by all too many people who are conned by phrases, cliches and shallow generalisations. That is the way in which, step by step, freedom is eroded and we are all put into guiding reins. The Minister referred to what I said as "racist gobbledegook", but "racist" is not a legitimate expression. If the Bill goes through as it stands, the speech I am making is not one that I shall be able to make outside the House. That, however, is not the point at issue.
While Parliament has the Bill in its custody it should put this matter right before it goes to the other place. It has no authority because it is not an elected body, but it is where wiser counsels may prevail.
I am a member of an elected House. We all are. I know what my constituents think about the Bill. We all know what our constituents think about it. Does that not matter? Labour Members know


what their constituents think about it. What are we here for but to reflect the opinion of the Commons of England? As Burke said, we represent not our own interests but those of the Commons of England. I know what my Commons think about the Bill.
But Labour Members are entrenched in office and reckon that they will get away with it. Governments are organised; they have their apparatus and their whipping. They talk of consequences, and General Elections are threatened. They reckon that they can ride roughshod over public opinion, but they know that what I have been saying represents the majority view of the people. They know what would happen if the issue were put directly to the people.

Mr. Brotherton: Through you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, may I ask whether any hon. Member opposite would stand up and say that his constituents were overwhelmingly in favour of this Bill?

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. That intervention is entirely out of order. We are not having the Third Reading debate at this stage.

Mr. Bell: I am not sure that hon. Members opposite are not in such a stunned state that they are incapable of standing up and saying anything at the moment. But I am not interested in them. I am proposing to sit down. I have made my points. I know that some of my hon. Friends, and possibly some hon. Members opposite, want to say something about the amendment and that my hon. Friends will possibly say more or less what I have said. In doing so, they will be speaking not only from their own judgment but for their constituents. Again as Burke pointed out, we are free to exercise our own judgment, but in this case hon. Members who support the amendment will also be speaking for the majority of their constituents in their interpretation and understanding of the views of those they represent.

Mr. Stokes: I rise with alacrity to support my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Beaconsfield (Mr. Bell) on this most important amendment, which I treat with the utmost seriousness. As the House knows, I have spent my career since the war in personnel management and dealing with people's lives and

careers, including their qualifications and the essential standards they have to have before they go on into further stages of life.
The amendment at least seeks to limit the overwhelming power and dangerous force of the clause, which will profoundly affect all the professions and similar bodies to an extent which I do not believe either my hon. Friends or the Government appreciate. It is vital to someone starting on his career that he should have a fair chance of passing the requisite qualifications or examinations and proceed to receive the appropriate degree, diploma or whatever it may be.
But there is a new trap, a new trick, in the clause. Those who have not read the Bill very carefully may have missed it. Approval can be withheld from people who in all other respects qualify perfectly in terms of service, study, passing the necessary examinations and so on if it can be found that at some time in the past, either with or without their knowledge, they discriminated against somebody and practised something which is now becoming an unlawful discrimination.
11.0 p.m.
This is very near to Communist doctrine. It is certainly the doctrine of the absolute State. This guilt by association reminds one of certain very unpleasant regimes in the world which we fought and conquered in the last war. One might wonder, particularly with a Government who are supposed to be modern, up to date and progressive, if not trendy, how this vindictive concentration on something perhaps quite trivial and harmless which happened years ago can become part of the principles underlying the recent Rehabilitation of Offenders Act.
To be more specific, one might find a young man or woman, perhaps in the middle twenties or older, who has had an exemplary record at school, training college or university and later in a business or profession and who, eventually obtaining qualifications, thinks that that is the last hurdle. But it is not. There is a trick, there is a catch, here. Some one can inform. Someone can dig out the past of a young person of that sort and say, for instance "You were a member of the Monday Club" or "You were associated with the Tribune Group" in which


somebody has at one time or another practised—or appeared to practise—racial discrimination.
It is a monstrous thing that we are about. Do we really appreciate it? All that we are doing in this quite small amendment is at least to ensure that those awful provisions remain only with the great and well-known established professions, which, one hopes, will be able to look after themselves. Certainly the lawyers have been more successful in looking after themselves than, for instance, the doctors.
The Bill appears to want to cover the whole of public and private life, from the cradle to the grave. "Big Brother" is watching us, not only in our jobs but, if this Government last, in our homes as well. There will be those who want to extend the clause. The Minister laughs. No doubt he thinks it is very funny. But the people of England will not laugh. I have noticed in recent weeks that there has been very little laughter on this subject. We have all had hundreds of letters from people all over England protesting against this monstrous and unfair legislation.
The amendment at least tries to do something for the voluntary bodies, which are the glory of England. The Government are envious of them and would like to abolish them. I refer to the Red Cross Society and to bodies of that kind. There are people in the Red Cross who have qualified and are proud to have their star. Under this clause they too can be stopped in their tracks, stopped dead, because some informer, without necessarily having very much evidence, can say, "Ho, ho, Miss Snooks, 15 years ago you were associated with a body which had something to do with racial discrimination."
This is the nonsense that we are dealing with in our Parliament in this ancient country. What has happened to us? Have we taken collective leave of our senses? I sometimes wonder. I look now at the Ministers on the Government Front Bench. I look also where I should not look—at their advisers. I wonder whether those people ever ask ordinary men or women their views on these matters. Or do they simply ask each other and go round in circles, or possibly go just as

far—if the Minister concerned is the Home Secretary—as the Athenaeum?

Mr. Edward Lyons: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that his own Front Bench has said that it will vote for the Bill? [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh, no."] Oh, yes, it has.

Mr. Stokes: The hon. and learned Gentleman is wrong again. That has been retracted. It was a mistake. I am afraid that, on the whole, the hon. and learned Gentleman's interruptions have not been very helpful to his own side.
I am trying to bring the House back to the realities of life. Like most people, tomorrow I shall be going to my constituency and to factories, pubs, clubs, churches and schools. I shall meet a great many people, a large cross-section of the English working people. They will ask "What have you been about? What were you doing late last night in Parliament? Were you helping us, your constituents, with our many worries and anxieties on the economy, the lack of finance, inflation, rising prices and all the problems we have under this present Government?" What shall I say? Do I tell them "I have been engaged in trying to resist your being done down. I have been trying to stand up for your fundamental rights." Because this clause and the Bill are spy's and an informer's charter? It is absolutely disgraceful that it should be put forward by a Government who pretend to be progressive.
To return again to the main purpose of the amendment, I hope that the big professions will wake up in time. I believe that the Minister belongs to one himself, one which has looked after itself. I think that the big professions can probably look after themselves. One certainly hopes that they will. We shall support them all we can. We believe that the voluntary spirit is the absolute backbone of England. They are other less-well-known, less-famous clubs and societies, and it is at those that the giant arm of the State will strike. It is they who will find their futures and their lives interfered with and spied upon. They will be tripped up where they have no redress, no money and, unlike the trade unions, no power.
Surely in this House we must represent individual people. Surely we still believe in freedom in this place. Surely


that is the birthright of this country. Having sat here for six hours, I have been appalled at this third Race Relations Bill, or what I would call the Immigrants' Charter and Unfair Benefits Bill. It is simply a disgrace against the House and this Parliament. It brings us into disrepute and it widens still more the gap between what we do and what the public are thinking and feeling. I am appalled and disgusted by what I have heard from the Government side. I know that the Minister himself has no power to alter in any way even a comma in the Bill, but surely he can send for the Home Secretary, who has hardly appeared at all during all these hours. [HON. MEMBERS: "Where is he?"] No doubt he is on important business. No doubt he is thinking of his new job in Europe. But he is Home Secretary, and "home" is supposed to mean here in this country. Many ordinary, simple people think that the Home Office is looking after them. In fact, the Home Office is the greatest enemy of the people of England.

Mrs. Knight: I have been compelled to intervene in support of the amendment because, although I listened carefully to my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Beaconsfield (Mr. Bell), I am by no means certain that the clause does not refer to the conferring of educational qualifications by educational bodies.
The clause says:
It is unlawful for an authority or body"—
which surely could be an educational body—
which can confer an authorisation or qualification which is needed for, or facilitates, engagement in a particular profession or trade to discriminate".
Could anything speak more clearly of education?
Subsection (4) says that that does not apply to discrimination rendered unlawful by Clauses 17 and 18. But the discrimination referred to in those clauses is not the conferring of any educational qualification. Clause 17 says that it is unlawful to discriminate against a person by refusing to admit him to an establishment as a pupil
by refusing or deliberately omitting to afford him access
to any benefits, facilities or services or by excluding him from the establishment. Clause 18 is slightly wider, referring to a local education authority doing

any act which constitutes racial discrimination".
Surely none of those things actually relates to the conferring of educational benefit. It seems clear, however, that education could creep into Clause 12 and facilitating a person's gaining entry to a profession or trade. Would that not mean that any education authority which failed to confer this authorisation might be acting against the Bill, should it ever —perish the thought—reach the statute book?

Mr. Ronald Bell: My hon. Friend suggested during my speech that this provision might apply to education. I answered her too broadly and said that it did not apply to education because of Clauses 17 and 18. I went too wide. I think that my hon. Friend is right to point out that the disapplication in subsection (4) applies only to discrimination which is rendered unlawful by Clauses 17 and 18 and that, therefore, the kind of educational discrimination which is not rendered unlawful by those clauses will still be covered by Clause 12. Clause 18 is wider than Clause 17. It applies only to a local education authority and is, therefore, limited in its application quoad the person concerned.

Mrs. Knight: I am slightly unnerved to have my fears confirmed by what my hon. and learned Friend says. That gives me all the more application with which to support the amendment.

Mr. Lawrence: I am tempted, but I shall not give way to the temptation because of the lateness of the hour and the number of my hon. Friends who still wish to speak, to ally myself with the strong and forceful remarks made about the clause and particularly the use of the word "facilitates" and the general absurdity which the clause arouses in our law. I should be most usefully disposes to assist my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Beaconsfield (Mr. Bell) by drawing his attention to one specific absurdity of the use of that word.
As I understand it, the tenor of this legislation—an aspect of it is encapsulated in the clause—is to try to be of assistance to minority groups such as coloured immigrants who might otherwise be disadvantaged by the existing laws of this country. It is directed to try to help


coloured people who come to this country and want to be absorbed in our processes. That is a worthwhile and desirable end to be attained if it were possible. What happens under the clause will achieve precisely the opposite result.
Let me say why I believe that.

Mr. John Mendelson: The hon. Member will be voting for us in a moment.

11.15 p.m.

Mr. Lawrence: I am concerned to try to get as much sense into this legislation as is possible, bearing in mind the attitude of Labour Members. They are ready to support their Government even without perhaps giving adequate thought to the details of the legislation. I am grateful to the hon. Member for listening to what I am saying.
When I first began to practise at the Bar, as everybody knows times were comparatively hard. As a pupil, I was apprenticed to a qualified and senior practitioner.

Mr. Ronald Bell: A senior junior.

Mr. Lawrence: I had the honour to be apprenticed to a very senior, honourable and distinguished junior. It might embarrass the company if I named him, but there was no greater practitioner at the criminal Bar at the time I had the honour to be accepted as his pupil. As a pupil I did not earn very much money. I used to supplement my income by teaching for a number of evenings a week at a college of commerce. I lectured in commercial law. Even in 1964 a large body of persons came to this country to learn the best that we could provide by way of education.
I taught at a college in West London. There was a large number of Commonwealth students, coloured boys and girls, who intended to become company secretaries, accountants and so on. I taught them commercial law. I shall say nothing of the degree of excellence they attained. I forbear from speaking about the pass and failure rates. The significant point was that many of them came to this country to study our system and ultimately to take examinations which would enable them to qualify for a number of professions and occupations.

They would then return to their own country with the cachet of having been educated or qualified in Great Britain according to the traditions of our English law.
At the beginning of each session in September I frequently had to say to the 30 or 40 students who sat in their serried ranks before me "Hands up those of you who have any difficulty in comprehending the English language". To begin with, they would all be unhappy about saying that they were not completely cognisant of the English language. Then I would go on to explain to them that three years' study of the law would be a complete and utter waste of time—such was the use of words, the importance of the application of the spoken and written word and a thorough understanding of it—if at the end of their study, when they came to answer the examination question, they could not use with the facility of an Englishman precise words and phrases and spell and write so that an examiner could read their answers.
I used to spend the whole of the first lesson trying to explain to a class of 40 that they would not only be wasting my time—though that did not matter, because I was being paid—but would be wasting their own and their colleagues' time. I explained that they would be distressing their wives, children and dependants by leading them to believe that at the end of three years they would be qualified. I told them that at the end they would still not be able to pass the examination because they could not sufficiently master the English language.
I was doing an act of kindness to Commonwealth students who thought that it was easy to walk into a class, study law for three years, become qualified and go home with a qualification. It is an easy matter for those who are brought up to speak the English language, but it is not easy for students from parts of the Commonwealth where English is not commonly spoken. I always managed to thin out my class to about half at the first or second session although it sometimes took longer. In the end there were about 20 students who knew the English language and were able to master the subject in the course of three years to facilitate their entry into a profession or trade.
Let us examine how the clause would apply to that situation. It states:
It is unlawful for an authority or body which can confer an authorisation or qualification which is needed for, or facilitates, engagement in a particular profession or trade to discriminate against a person—
(a) in the terms on which it is prepared to confer on him that authorisation or qualification.
I said to my students "Do not waste your time, do not waste anybody else's time. The hard, horrible truth is that you may not be accepted for qualification or authorisation in the course that you are following if you have not mastered the English language sufficiently to understand what a lawyer is teaching you". That would be an unlawful way for me to behave according to the clause. It is unlawful to discriminate or to say anything which is in effect discrimination. I would be doing a strictly unlawful act, and I would perhaps be deterred from doing it.
If I had not warned those students, there would have been a large number of Commonwealth immigrants learning law going on week after week, month after month, year after year, believing that it would be easy to study and pass an examination even though they had not mastered the English language. Would that be an act of kindness to Commonwealth students or to their wives, who live more or less estranged from their husbands in the belief that they will gain a qualification to make them wealthier, more successful citizens in their own country? It is kinder to be able to tell such people at the start "Please go away, perfect your English and return next September, March or May, when you will find the course much easier".

Mr. John Page: Did my hon. Friend ever have the opportunity to correct examination papers? Would it surprise him to know that a friend of mine who has a chair at an English university, the name of which I shall not disclose, has been under great pressure to mark more favourably papers by foreign and immigrant students?

Mr. Lawrence: I did not mark examination papers, but I constantly marked test papers.
There is another aspect of my experience which bears directly on the point made so forcefully by my hon. Friend.

At the Bar we help those who follow us. My Inn set up a sponsorship scheme whereby the more experienced barristers had pupils or beginners and generally looked after their welfare for their early years. Not infrequently, Commonwealth students said to me "I have taken the Bar examination several times. I know my subject, yet I keep being failed. Is this because I am being discriminated against?" They always think that they are being discriminated against.

Dr. M. S. Miller: They are usually right.

Mr. Lawrence: I do not believe that the hon. Gentleman meant that. There has never been a hint or suggestion that the governing body of the Bar has ever sought to discriminate against Commonwealth students, if for no other reason than that once they have learnt the British legal system they go back to their own countries to spread it, and that is a source of great pride to us all.
Commonwealth students who thought that they had the answers but failed and failed again used to ask me "Can you do something? Something is going wrong. They are discriminating against me because I am coloured." The answer was almost invariably that the examiner could not understand a word they wrote, either because they could not write legible English or because, if they could, they did not understand it. Nobody had the heart to tell them "Please go away for six months and perfect your English, because you will not pass the examination unless your English is better and you understand the obscure legal phrases which we use".
Under the clause, people may believe that they cannot say "Because you are less able to understand and speak English, you will almost certainly fail your examination", because that would be discrimination. The examination for which I taught at the college of commerce was not specifically needed for the students to qualify as company secretaries or whatever else it was in some other part of the globe. It enabled them on return to their countries to say "I studied this course and took this examination in Britain. This has enabled me to tell you that I have this Qualification and, therefore, I need not take your examination". Therefore, the examination "facilitates".
The clause is bizarre because it does not help those whom the Bill is directed to try to assist. Indeed, it hinders and hurts them. That is because it will stop lecturers saying "You are different from him because you do not understand the English language so well and you may well fail your examination".
11.30 p.m.
Let us remember the years of misery that are undergone by some Commonwealth students. They have to study day in and day out because it is not always so easy for them to study in the English language, which may be a foreign language, as in their native tongue. Let us bear in mind the deprivation of wives and families. Sometimes it is necessary for the wife of a Commonwealth student who is studying in this country to go out to work and not to care for the family in order to maintain the husband as a student. The students have to pay ever-increasing fees.
If it is thought by the Government that that is a desirable end for the clause, I cannot agree. I ask the Government to reconsider the clause and the amendment which was so powerfully presented by my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Beaconsfield. There is one word that broadens the scope of the clause far wider than is necessary. If that word—or the whole clause—was deleted. a far greater kindness would be done to Commonwealth students in the situation I have described than is done by practically anything else in the Bill.

Mr. Edward Lyons: The speech of the hon. Member for Burton (Mr. Lawrence) was pernicious and inaccurate in description. There is nothing in the clause that has the meaning that the hon. Gentleman attaches to it. It does not do what he suggests. His description bore no relationship to the clause. The clause is to protect students, not the examiner. It is not to advise the student that his language is not good enough. It is not racial in any way. There is no merit in the hon. Gentleman's speech. I speak about it only because it contained the sort of remarks that are so damaging in the country.

Mr. Nicholas Winterton: I am not sure that I should take up the comments of

the hon. and learned Member for Bradford, West (Mr. Lyons). I feel that they added very little to the debate. If I had been called before the hon. and learned Gentleman, I should have asked the forgiveness of my hon. Friend the Member for Burton (Mr. Lawrence) for not taking up his argument. However, I believe that he has done the country a service by demonstrating some of the appalling consequences of this legislation.
I shall be brief in supporting the excellent case that has been presented by my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Beaconsfield (Mr. Bell), which was so ably supported by my hon. Friend the Member for Halesowen and Stourbridge (Mr. Stokes). We often hear from Labour Members that they represent the working people and that we on this side represent merely sectional minorities. I ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department—I am delighted that he is with us—and his right hon. and hon. Friends to put the race relations issue to the people by way of a referendum, or perhaps by way of a major piece of policy at a General Election. I can assure the right hon. Gentleman that the legislation that he is putting forward on behalf of the Government would be thrown out lock stock and barrel.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. The hon. Gentleman is fully aware that we are not engaged in a Third Reading debate. Please stick to the amendment.

Mr. Winterton: I shall heed your warning, Mr. Deputy Speaker, and I shall come to the amendment. It seeks to delete the two words "or facilitates". I fully support the amendment because it reduces the scope of this legislation and, therefore, is indeed a useful amendment.
My hon. and learned Friend the Member for Beaconsfield mentioned two organisations that would be affected by the provision—namely, the Pony Club and the Jockey Club. Indeed, it is true that other sporting clubs will be affected. It is appalling to think that such organisations will be subject to this oppressive legislation. I believe that these provisions are irrelevant and unnecessary.
If my understanding of the clause is correct, it means that any authority or body which confers an authorisation or qualification in certain respects will be


discriminating against a person if it jeopardises his livelihood. This will happen when there is evidence that tends to show that he or she, or any employee or agent, has practised unlawful discrimination. What a hotch-potch it all is. In my view, this provision will be an informer's charter. Indeed, the clause contains the ingredients of "1984". It could so easily turn friend against friend and citizen against citizen. In the end, nobody will trust his neighbour. For that reason, the amendment is of considerable benefit to the country in trying to improve what is an outrageous Bill.
I have no time for race relations legislation, but I appreciate that in this debate we are trying to improve the Bill. I do not believe that the purpose for which the Government are promoting the Bill would be in any way damaged by omitting these two words. I hope that the Home Secretary, who is now present, will comment on the situation. Indeed, I hope that the Government will agree to accept the amendment.

Mr. John: I begin by asking the hon. and learned Member for Beaconsfield (Mr. Bell) to examine the wording of Clause 12, which says:
It is unlawful for an authority or body which can confer an authorisation or qualification which is needed for, or facilitates, engagement in a particular profession or trade to discriminate against a person".
The hon. Member for Burton (Mr. Lawrence), in relating to us his experiences in lecturing, sought to suggest that even to discriminate against a person on grounds of kindness would come within the clause. If he refers back to Clause 1, he will see that "discriminate" means to discriminate on racial grounds and to treat a person less favourably. The example that the hon. Member gave would not constitute less favourable treatment on racial grounds. It was concerned with welfare on educational grounds. Nothing that the hon. Member said would contravene the clause or anything else in the Bill.

Mr. Lawrence: The Minister misunderstands my point, perhaps because of the way in which I explained it. It is not that a lecturer, in telling a student he should go away and learn English better, discriminates on racial grounds. It is the fact that the lecturer might

think, justifiably, that the student would think he was being discriminated against on racial grounds and, therefore, the lecturer would not do what he should do. Sensitivity to criticism of this kind is a very substantial factor with Commonwealth students and immigrants.

Mr. John: I disagree profoundly. I have pointed out that nothing in the clause or in the definition of discrimination has that effect. That sort of groundless fear should not go out from this House.
The hon. and learned Member for Beaconsfield has moved an amendment which would not alter the clause as far as it is related to qualifications needed for engagement in a particular profession. There are two kinds of qualification which assist in a profession—those which are necessary before one enters, and those which influence the prospects of success once one is in. We are trying to ensure that not only the qualifications necessary for entry but those which influence prospects are not denied to a person purely on the ground of race. Hon. Members opposite should be very clear about this. We are preventing racial discrimination in the award of licences, certificates, diplomas and so on.
The hon. and learned Member for Beaconsfield says that these bodies are private and that it is a disgrace that they should be subjected to the law. But they are not private bodies regulating their own affairs; they are organised bodies which are conferring qualifications on people for a profession or trade. In this sense, they impinge upon the public in a very real manner.
If the Jockey Club, for example, is involved—there has been considerable disquiet about its affairs in the past—and if it withholds, on racial grounds, the granting of a qualification needed for or to facilitate engagement in that profession, that will be a breach of the Act and it should be treated as such.

Mr. Ronald Bell: The Minister is glossing rather too quickly over the two points about the width of definition of "authorisation" and "qualification". He has been talking about the granting of qualifications as if they were normal certificates. They include recognition, approval and very vague expressions. He


is also ignoring the very wide definition given to "profession" in the definition clause of the Bill, which makes it clear that this applies to any occupation at all.

11.45 p.m.

Mr. John: If it relates to an occupation, I do not dissent from that, nor do I seek to evade it. I have dealt with the substance behind the amendment. I do not intend to follow the hon. and learned Gentleman and his hon. Friends down every labyrinth along which they have sought to go in the debate.

Mr. Nigel Lawson: Will the Minister of State give way?

Mr. John: No. It has been imputed that it is a lack of power to alter the Bill or to accept amendments that has caused the Government to be inflexible—

Mr. Brotherton: Will the Minister give way?

Mr. John: The Government have resisted the amendments because they are without merit.

Mr. Brotherton: Will the Minister give way?

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. The Minister does not intend to give way. Will the hon. Member for Louth (Mr. Brotherton) please resume his seat?

Mr. John: The amendments are without merit and would not help in these matters. They would be the sort of spur to prejudice that Opposition Members have sought to exhibit in their speeches.

Mr. John Page: I was unable to make a short intervention before the Minister of State replied to the debate, and I wish to raise a specific point of some importance. I should like to address myself to a remark by the hon. and learned Member for Bradford, West (Mr. Lyons), because I believe that the Clause has been based very much on the sex relations Act—I mean the Sex Discrimination Act. After 10 o'clock at night my mind tends to turn to other matters.
My question concerns the position of a local health authority which could confer authorisation on a medical practitioner in its area. Would it be legitimate for the General Medical Council to carry out

examinations in the use of English on medical practitioners from abroad whose qualifications would normally entitle them to practise in this country?
Secondly, consider the position of a local health authority which might have difficulty in manning an emergency service. Suppose that two out of three doctors in an emergency night duty team were already foreign or Commonwealth doctors, would it be discriminating if it refused to authorise a third? Would it not be discriminating against a doctor on a racial basis? Bearing in mind the tragedy which occurred at a certain Middlesex hospital about a year ago, and the lack of understanding of a doctor in carrying out an operation, it is important to know whether the local authority would be entitled to discriminate on grounds of race.

Mr. Lawson: I had not intended to speak on this amendment or on the Report stage at all at this hour until the Minister of State refused to give way when I sought to make an intervention a moment ago. It was clear from his brief and inadequate reply to the debate that he either did not understand what the Bill was about or—and perhaps this is more likely—he did not wish to inform the House exactly what the Bill meant.
Although the Minister sought to give the contrary impression, the words "authorisation or qualification" in Clause 12 include, inter alia, enrolment.
The intervention which I sought to make but which the Minister refused to entertain was to ask whether, for example, enrolment into freemasonry and membership of that order, which is not a qualification but is held by many people to facilitate engagement in certain professions, would be caught by these provisions.
This is a serious point which concerns very many people in this country. I should have thought it was a reasonable question to ask the Minister. I have listened to the debate with a completely open mind. I am here to be persuaded one way or the other by the Minister's answers.
The hon. Gentleman might have permitted me to make my very brief intervention and gone on—as we are discussing an amendment that the words "or


facilitates" should be removed—to give examples of the bodies and authorisations and qualifications, as defined in subsection (3), which would be without the ambit of the Bill if the amendment were accepted. This is something we must bear in mind in judging this matter and deciding how to vote. We want to know which authorisations and qualifications and which bodies would be taken out of the ambit of the Bill if the amendment were accepted and which bodies would not be caught if the Bill were confined to authorisations and qualifications needed for engagement in particular professions.
We have had no guidance and no list of examples of the likely consequences of the amendment, yet this is what the whole debate has been about. The Minister has told us nothing. His arrogance in refusing to accept any interventions, the contempt with which he treats the House and his Fascist attitude to the Bill raise suspicions in my mind that I have not had hitherto. I harbour the suspicion

Question accordingly negatived.

that the Government's attitude to the Bill is precisely what I have told my constituents it is not. I have told them that that is not the attitude that the Government have in mind; it is not the way in which they approach this matter.

However, I am afraid that, in the light of the contempt and arrogance that the Minister of State has shown in his reply, I am beginning to believe that those of my constituents who write to me are right and that I have been wrong in trying to disarm them and persuade them that that is not the Government's intention. I do not believe that it is the Secretary of State's intention. I know him, and I do not believe it. The Minister of State does his cause no good whatsoever by the arrogance and contempt with which he attempts to deal with the honest doubts of Opposition Members.

Question put, That the amendment be made:—

The House divided: Ayes 23, Noes 84.

Division No. 225.]
AYES
[11.57 p.m.


Bell, Ronald
Gow, Ian (Eastbourne)
Powell, Rt Hon J. Enoch


Bennett, Sir Frederic (Torbay)
Hannam, John
Tebbit, Norman


Boscawen, Hon Robert
Lawrence, Ivan
Viggers, Peter


Brotherton, Michael
Lawson, Nigel
Wall, Patrick


Budgen, Nick
Moate, Roger
Winterton, Nicholas


Bulmer, Esmond
Molyneaux, James



Cope, John
Morrison, Charles (Devizes)
TELLERS FOR THE AYES:


Fraser, Rt Hon H. (Stafford &amp; St)
Neubert, Michael
Mr. Ivor Stanbrook and


Goodhew, Victor
Page, John (Harrow West)
Mr. John Stokes.




NOES


Anderson, Donald
Jenkins, Rt Hon Roy (Stechford)
Robinson, Geoffrey


Atkinson. Norman
John, Brynmor
Roderick, Caerwyn


Bates, Alf
Johnson, James (Hull West)
Rodgers, William (Stockton)


Bean, R. E.
Johnston, Russell (Inverness)
Rooker, J. W.


Bidwell, Sydney
Judd, Frank
Ross, Stephen (Isle of Wight)


Blenkinsop, Arthur
Kaufman, Gerald
Short, Mrs Renée (Wolv NE)


Booth, Rt Hon Albert
Kerr, Russell
Silkin, Rt Hon S. C. (Dulwich)


Callaghan, Jim (Middlelon &amp; P)
Latham, Arthur (Paddington)
Skinner, Dennis


Carter-Jones, Lewis
Lestor, Miss Joan (Eton &amp; Slough)
Snape, Peter


Cocks, Michael (Bristol S)
Lipton, Marcus
Spearing, Nigel


Cook, Robin F. (Edin C)
Lyons, Edward (Bradford W)
Stallard, A. W.


Corbett, Robin
McElhone, Frank
Stoddart, David


Cox, Thomas (Tooting)
MacFarquhar, Roderick
Summerskill, Hon Dr Shirley


Crowther, Stan (Rotherham)
Mackenzie, Gregor
Thomas, Ron (Bristol NW)


Cryer, Bob
Madden, Max
Tinn, James


Davidson, Arthur
Marshall, Jim (Leicester S)
Tomilnson, John


Davis, Clinton (Hackney C)
Mendelson, John
Walker, Harold (Doncaster)


Dormand, J. D.
Miller, Dr M. S. (E Kilbride)
Walker, Terry (Kingswood)


Eadie, Alex
Miller, Mrs Millie (Ilford N)
Ward, Michael


Ellis, John (Brigg &amp; Scun)
Morris, Alfred (Wythenshawe)
Watkinson, John


Faulds, Andrew
Newens, Stanley
White, Frank R. (Bury)


Flannery, Martin
O'Halloran, Michael
Willey, Rt Hon Frederick


Foot, Rt Hon Michael
Palmer, Arthur
Wise, Mrs Audrey


George, Bruce
Pavitt, Laurie
Wrigglesworth, Ian


Graham, Ted
Pendry, Tom
Young, David (Bolton E)


Grant, John (Islington C)
Penhaligon, David



Grocott, Bruce
Radice, Giles
TELLERS FOR THE NOES:


Harrison, Walter (Wakefield)
Rees, Rt Hon Merlyn (Leeds S)
Mr. James Hamilton and


Hayman, Mrs Helene
Reid, George
Mr. Donald Coleman.


Hooley, Frank

Mr. Mayhew: I beg to move Amendment No. 5, in page 8, line 27, leave out subsection (2).

Mr. Deputy Speaker: With this we shall take Amendment No. 10, in Clause 32, page 20, line 29, after "Act", insert "(save for section 12)".

Mr. Mayhew: It is subsection (2) of Clause 12 that has attracted so much criticism in the speeches of so many of my hon. Friends. It is no disrespect to the adroit arguments they have advanced to say that they could hardly miss. It is logical, given the general intention of the Bill, to apply it to qualifying bodies. That is what subsection (1) does. But subsection (2) goes very much further, and we think that it should come out.
Subsection (2) is concerned with qualifying bodies which have a duty in law to satisfy themselves as to the good character of candidates for the qualifications they control. These qualifying bodies range over a wide spectrum of our public, professional and commercial life. The qualifications, which may extend to admission to a faculty or to a profession, confer upon the recipient a very valuable advantage. Subsection (2) seeks to tell these qualifying bodies, many of them established by statute, what shall and shall not be taken into consideration by them when exercising their duty to decide whether a candidate is of good character.
The effect of the subsection is to declare that evidence of unlawful discrimination on racial grounds in the past is capable of being evidence of bad character. That, taken by itself, seems to us to constitute legislative nonsense. It is objectionable enough taken by itself, but the clause does not end there because the unlawful discrimination may, by virtue of the subsection, have been the discrimination of the candidate's employee or of his agent, whether past or present.
If that were not enough, the clause goes on to say that the discrimination need not have been in the same profession or trade as that in which the candidate is seeking his qualification. It can have been in any profession or any trade at any time in the past, and it is enough even if it were in connection with a profession or trade.
I dare say we shall hear from the Minister of State whether there has ever been a precedent for telling a qualifying body

—or indeed, come to that, anybody else —what can and cannot be evidence of bad character. In fact, I very much hope we shall hear it from the Home Secretary, whom we are glad to see here. Legislation must have some regard for the ordinary meaning of the words that it employs.
Has there ever been a precedent in which this House or Parliament has said, for example, to the Royal College of Surgeons, to the Law Society, to the Bar Council or to any other qualifying body, as defined in the Bill, what it shall or shall not take into account as evidence of bad character? If there is a precedent—and I strongly suspect there is not —it ought not to be followed today.
Character must mean the estimation in which a man is held by those who are acquainted with him. That seems to me to be a thoroughly sensible and commonsense definition of what we mean by character. The clause seeks to change that meaning into something else: the estimation in which Parliament thinks a man ought to be held by those acquainted with him.
We ought first to assume—why on earth should we not, sitting here in this House?—that any qualifying bodywith a duty to satisfy itself as to the good character of an applicant for a qualification will be diligent in discharging that task. Why should we assume to the contrary? Secondly, if evidence of discrimination is capable of being evidence of bad character in a candidate, it will be taken into account. We should assume that it will be taken into account if it is capable of it. It is only if it is not capable—using the ordinary commonsense English language meaning of the words—of constituting bad character, as properly understood, that the subsection becomes necessary at all.
That is why we believe—in fact, we are certain—that the effect of the subsection is to turn the ordinary meaning of character into the estimation in which Parliament thinks a man ought to be held by those acquainted with him. We think that to make a law in those terms would be wrong in principle, and we think it would be absurd in application. It would be wrong in principle because it constitutes an absolutely unwarranted intrusion upon the discretion of independent qualifying bodies to decide what is


good character and what is not. After all, we are concerned in the clause only with those qualifying bodies which have a duty in law to satisfy themselves of the good character of those who seek qualification. That means, of course, those qualifying bodies upon which Parliament has conferred the discretion to decide whether people are of good character.
What possible warrant can there be for intervening in the exercise of that discretion by these highly respectable bodies, presumably at the summit of their profession, trade, association or whatever it may be and vested with the control of admission to that calling? What warrant can there be for us, here in this House, seeking to substitute our opinion as to what shall or shall not be regarded by them, in the exercise of the discretion which our predecessors have conferred upon them, as what is, or is not good character?
12.15 a.m.
It is wrong in principle and absurd in application. It is absurd in application because by no squeezing of the English language can the words "not of good character" be made to apply to a candidate of whom there is evidence tending to show—not showing or proving, but in this case simply tending to show—that his agent years ago, and in connection with a different profession from the one which he himself is seeking admission, practised unlawful discrimination within the meaning the Bill.
If any hon. Member from the Government side of the House can satisfy me that the ordinary English meaning of the words "not of good character" can conceivably be extended to a person in that category or situation, I shall take my hat off to him. I believe it to be a total absurdity to say that such a person is, by reason of that factor, of bad character.
But the matter does not end there, because we must consider Clause 32(1). Clause 32 is the clause which provides the principles of vicarious liability. Subsection (1) states:
Anything done by a person in the course of his employment shall be treated for the purposes of this Act as done by his employer as well as by him, whether or not it was done with the employer's knowledge or approval.
It is true that there is something of a defence in subsection (3), into which it is

not necessary, for the purposes of my argument, to enter at present. The important words, for the purposes of this clause and this argument, are the first words in subsection (1):
Anything done by a person in the course of his employment shall be treated for the purposes of this Act as done by his employer as well as by him,".
The purposes of the Bill embrace the purposes of Clause12. Therefore, any qualifying body—this is where Amendment No. 10 comes in—will be obliged, by virture of the provisions of Clause 32 (1), to treat anything done in the course of his employment by an agent of a candidate for qualification as having been done by that candidate for qualification. Unless Amendment No. 10 is carried, a further absurdity in the application of Clause 12(2) will be carried into law.
Where will it end when we in this House arrogate to ourselves the right to lay down criteria for good character or bad character, as we are proposing to do here for the first time? If, for the purposes of admission to a profession, trade or other association, we say "You shall take into account, in the discharge of your duty, whether everybody is of good character or not, and you shall take into account any evidence tending to show that in the past a candidate's agent has been guilty of discrimination", I think that we shall be opening a door which leads to a very dark and dangerous corridor. The clause does not say that it shall, by definition, amount to evidence of bad character. What it says is that it is capable of being evidence of bad character and that that shall be taken into consideration. That is bad enough. If we once say that certain conduct should be taken as evidence of bad character—committed not only by the candidate but by his servant or agent—where will it all end?
We are governed to an excessive extent by the doctrine of precedent. If this precedent is established, or if there is one already and it is to be reinforced by the clause, where will it end? In the not-too-distant future I can visualise a Minister saying that it is capable of being evidence of bad character that a candidate sang a political song in the House of Commons or that he voted or otherwise behaved in a way of which the


Government disapproved. That is the door we are opening.
This is thoroughly bad legislation. It makes no sensible contribution to the broad thrust of the Bill, which many of us wish to see carried through. The Bill can well be supported on sensible grounds, but this clause has nothing to do with that. The Government say that the objective of the Bill is to secure fair and equal treatment for everyone in the country. That objective is acknowledged by most people to be sensible, but it will not be advanced by a clause which is blemished by so manifest and unwarranted an absurdity.

Mr. Hugh Fraser: The excellent speech of my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Royal Tunbridge Wells (Mr. Mayhew) must make it clear to the Home Secretary that the subsection could well be removed, for the simple reason that it is against the ordinary sense of justice of the people of this country. It means, in the parlance of the Civil Service, that everyone will have to be positively vetted before he can get a recommendation. People will have to be investigated to ensure that neither they nor their servants at any time were believed to have done anything tending to contribute to discrimination. This opens enormous fields for almost Gestapo-like work by enemies of the person concerned. They could give bogus evidence before the honourable groups of men who will have to decide whether someone is of good character.
In conection with Clause 32, it makes people of moderate view wonder whether the Bill is worth passing at all. Full of such palpable nonsense as this, it does great damage to the cause of race relations. It makes people indignant that they should be submitted to such absurd humiliation. The Home Secretary should seriously consider withdrawal of the subsection, otherwise many hon. Members will find it difficult to vote for the Third Reading. If the Bill seems so obviously foolish to ordinary people, they will regard it as a piece of arrant and foolish nonsense which should be withdrawn.
I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will weigh these matters seriously. To impose on a distinguished body of men

such absurd conditions, to impose on people the problem of being had up for the actions of their servants and employees—not necessarily any longer employed by them—and in perpetuity being condemned for some action taken in the past by them or their employees puts them in a ridiculous position.
I do not know who drafted the Bill. It must have been some lunatic in the Race Relations Board. Certainly it was not done by a serious lawyer or politician. Whoever drafted it has caused more problems than are currently facing up in other areas. I hope that the Home Secretary, when he replies—and we are pleased to see that he is present and considers the issue to be one of importance—will deal with the idea of the positive vetting of candidates—a process which does not seem to have been carried out sufficiently well by the Government in relation to secrets of State, which are rather more important than questions such as whether one's cook did something 30 years ago. This is a matter which requires serious consideration. I hope that the clause will be withdrawn as speedily as possible.

Mr. Budgen: If I am fortunate enough to catch your eye later, Mr. Deputy Speaker, I shall seek to argue that before Parliament engages in legislation it should be satisfied that there is widespread consent for such proposed legislation. I shall argue that there is no such widespread consent for this legislation.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. At what stage does the hon. Member intend to argue that? He may do it later, but he is certainly not in order in doing so now.

Mr. Budgen: When I argue that there is common consent to legislation, it is inevitably a subjective judgment. Inevitably I draw upon my own reactions to legislation and not upon a wide corpus of evidence. I draw upon conversations I have had with people. When my eye lit upon this subsection I realised that at last there was some objective evidence to support my proposition. If an offence has been created and if something which is obviously anti-social has been done by a person wishing to join one of our professions, we would expect that profession to take account of it without being ordered to do so by law.
The professions are, after all, composed of people who have a vested interest in orderly government and in the observance of the rule of law. One would expect that they, above all, would consent to legislation which had the widespread support of the British people. One would not expect, if we were passing legislation dealing with offences of murder or manslaughter, to find a subsection at the end of the legislation saying that where a qualifying body was considering the application of a candidate who had committed an offence of murder it should take into account the fact that he had been convicted of murder before deciding whether he was of good character, whether he was a suitable person to become a barrister, a lawyer, a dentist or a member of any of the other learned professions. It is precisely because the Home Secretary knows that there is no widespread consent to this sort of legislation that he has to order the most law-abiding, respectable people in society to take account of infringements of this legislation, which seeks to make discrimination unlawful.

Mr. Hal Miller: Can my hon. Friend explain how, in his opinion, this legislation might tie in with other legislation passed not long ago dealing with spent offences? If the discrimination had been practised, presumably at some later stage it would become spent.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I hope that the hon. Member is not discriminating against the Chair. I did not hear him because he was addressing his hon. Friend.

Mr. Hal Miller: I had finished my interjection.

Mr. Lawson: Ask the question again.

Mr. Hal Miller: I was asking my hon. Friend, who is a lawyer, I believe, whether he could explain what happened in the case of offences of discrimination in the light of legislation not long ago passed by the House dealing with the rehabilitation of offenders, which provided that offences became spent. I wondered how evidence might be adduced which tended to show this.

12.30 a.m.

Mr. Budgen: It is not for me to try to assist the Government in presenting

their legislation. As I understand it, the practice of unlawful discrimination is not a criminal offence that will give rise to certain obligations upon the prosecution to prove the offence against the defendant, or give to the defendant the ancient rights of any person charged with a criminal offence in the courts of this country. It is a new, strange situation. It is something half-way between a criminal offence and a civil matter. It involves a situation in which the defendant or respondent is given all the disadvantages of criminal proceedings but none of the advantages. It would not be a fair challenge to bring in the matter of the spent conviction.
Only because the Home Secretary knows that he has no consent for the legislation does he seek to impose upon the professions, above all, the obligation to have regard to the practice of unlawful discrimination. If he knew that every solicitor regarded it as a heinous offence to practise unlawful discrimination, or that every dentist felt in his heart that it was a disagreeable thing, the subsection would be unnecessary. The right hon. Gentleman is introducing the legislation because he knows that he is forcing his own prejudices down the throats of the British people.
It is worse than that. When one seeks to impose legislation, one does not merely damage the legislation that one thrusts upon the people but one damages the rule of law. As the Home Secretary has so often courageously expounded to his hon. Friends below the Gangway, the rule of law is a single indivisible garment.
The rule of law can be damaged by progressive liberals like the Home Secretary by such legislation. As much damage can be done as would be by those who wish the Shrewsbury pickets to be released for political reasons. Although the Home Secretary believes himself to be the most fervent upholder of the rule of law, by mistake he does as much damage to it by this legislation as he would have done had he let out the Shrewsbury pickets.

Mr. Powell: The hon. and learned Member for Royal Tunbridge Wells (Mr. Mayhew), in his eloquent, indeed fulminating, speech in moving the amendment, inquired rather speculatively whether there could possibly be any precedent for the extraordinary deformation of our law


represented by this subsection. The answer to his question is "Yes". He seemed to fear that the answer might be "Yes".
I cannot praise too highly the decision whereby, to facilitate the study of this piece of anti-discriminatory legislation, we are given the reference in the margin "s" for "sugar"—as it used to be in the signals alphabet—referring us back to the Sex Discrimination Act. Sure enough, there it is—Section 13 of the Sex Discrimination Act of last Session, against which I am glad to think I voted on Second Reading and was only prevented by illness from voting on Third Reading
A cursory examination of that statute confirms that the present statute is based upon it. I do not know what fees the draftsmen received for drafting the Bill, but most of it was common form. The clauses were simply copied into the Bill with the word "race" replacing "sex". It was said "Just use the same clauses." The clause titled "Qualifying bodies" is the same as in the Sex Discrimination Act.
I was curious to examine the proceedings on that precedent. I find no trace that there was any Division in the Committee. No one who scrutinised the Sex Discrimination Bill on behalf of a jealous Opposition in the last Session thought fit to divide the Committee.
I have also consulted the proceedings on consideration on 18th June. Although, faithful and vigilant as always, as reported at column 1531 of Hansard for that date, my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Beaconsfield (Mr. Bell) had something to say on some aspects of the similar clause, there was no evidence of any disposition to divide the House on that subject, nor did anyone but my hon. and learned Friend speak at all on it.
It is wonderful, and much to be commended, that at the second time of hearing the House has taken offence which it did not take on the first occasion. Or should one perhaps conclude that hon. Members were even more cowed by the idea of interfering with a Bill directed against sex discrimination than by the terrors of being accused of interfering with a Bill dealing with racial discrimination? However, it is gratifying to note that a

little courage has trickled into the veins of the House, even on the subject of race, so that we are daring tonight not merely to read what is presented to us but actually to take objection to it and go so far, I apprehend, as to carry our objection into the Lobby.
What a dangerous thing precedent is, and how easily we slip into precedent, blown by the irresistible wind of fashion! How many people dared at any stage to raise their voices against the nonsense of a statute against sex discrimination, proposed by a White Paper issued by the Conservative Party in September 1973 and presented by Lord Carr, as he now is? There was hardly a voice raised against it. There were just one or two voices—one that I remember. How many voted against the Bill? Not more than a handful.
There is the precedent. We are told "You did it before. What is all this about the law of England and interfering with these venerable corporations? We have done it before." Now the argument runs that what was thought right for those who had been guilty, even if unwittingly and by association, of the ghastly crime of sex discrimination must be almost too good for anybody who has been guilty of race discrimination.
It is much to be welcomed that a more robust spirit seems to be abroad. I do not know what accounts for it, but at any rate let us not allow ourselves at this second time of asking to be cowed or dominated by the ground of precedent.

Mr. Budgen: The right hon. Gentleman spoke about people being guilty of unlawful discrimination—

Mr. Powell: I am coming to that. That was a mere abbreviation in order that I might deal with this section of my remarks before passing on to dilate upon the second section. I was saying—I make no complaint of my successor in the representation of that noble town in Staffordshire for interrupting me in my flow—

Mr. Budgen: It is in West Midlands now.

Mr. Powell: Have they moved it out of Staffordshire? There is no such place as West Midlands. It is unnatural and impossible that there should be such a


nonsensical division of the country. I am happy that at any rate I now represent a part of the United Kingdom in which the ancient counties are allowed to exist. Of course, everything possible is done to deprive them of any significance, but exist they still do. I owe an apology for being swept away by old attachments into what I fear must be only just within the bounds of order. I hasten to retire much further within those outer limits.
Let us break with precedent in so evil a matter, even though it be not merely the second time but the dozenth time that such a proposition has been made to the House. When legislation is put before us, we have a right to consider what is proposed de novo.
I was intending to emphasise as perhaps the most objectionable of all the objectionable features of this impossible Bill the words in the subsection that state
to have regard to any evidence tending to show".
That means that a person is to be put on unofficial trial years after the event with no provision for dealing with any irregularity or any possibility of examining the evidence, nor any right to challenge the evidence on the ground that it does not show that he committed the offence. It is sufficient that the evidence should tend to show that he committed the offence. What protection can there be five, 10 or 15 years afterwards against an allegation which, if true—this cannot be denied—tends to show that a person has been guilty, if only by association, of discrimination?
Here we are framing and moving towards the statute book a Bill in which an unsatisfactory provision, but still a provision, is made whereby under Parts VII and VIII those who are alleged to be guilty of racial discrimination have the opportunity to have that allegation examined by the commission, and then in consequence, if they are to be damnified thereby, established by one or another regular tribunal.
But all that disappears in Clause 12. In Clause 12 there is no need for the commission to have examined the matter. It does not say that the commission must have found that a person has practised unlawful discrimination. Still less does it say that the unlawful discrimination has been made the subject of a proceed-

ing and that civil action has been taken against him and that he has lost it. There is none of that. He is to be put on what is, in effect, a trial in private without knowledge of the evidence and without the ability to consider the evidence, in circumstances in which the ability to practise his profession or his trade may be taken away from him. After all, that is sufficient to remove his good character.
What sort of insanity is this, borne by the virus of the word "discrimination" and the notion of discrimination, that banishes from our minds all ideas of natural justice and fairness once the allegation of discrimination is made? My right hon. Friend the Member for Stafford and Stone (Mr. Fraser) was unjust in his suspicion that it was race that was here the sufficient cause. The answer is that it was not race, because in the earlier measure sex was quite sufficient. It was discrimination—and if we are legislating against discrimination nothing is too bad. No punishment, no injustice, is too severe or too intolerable for those even accused of it.
I do not think that on this occasion, the second time round, we can allow the statute book to be defiled by a provision of this sort.

12.45 a.m.

The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. Roy Jenkins): The right hon. Member for Down, South (Mr. Powell) described the speech of the hon. and learned Member for Royal Tunbridge Wells (Mr. Mayhew) as eloquent as opposed to cogent, which was the word used by the right hon. Member for Stafford and Stone (Mr. Fraser). Eloquent it may have been, but it could not have been cogent within the terms of argument deployed by the right hon. Member for Down, South.
The hon. and learned Member for Royal Tunbridge Wells rested himself on precedent, saying with eloquence "What precedent is there for this provision?" The right hon. Member for Down, South, who is always very good at sticking knives into the backs of Opposition Front Bench Members, brought forward the precedent extremely clearly.
I must point out that Clause 13 of the Sex Discrimination Bill was not voted against by the Opposition. But the right


hon. Member is mistaken in thinking that that was the only precedent. There was at least one earlier precedent, the Consumer Credit Bill, introduced by the right hon. and learned Member for Surrey, East (Sir G. Howe), on 14th November 1973. He then said:
the basic criterion provided in Clause 24 for the issue of a licence is that the applicant should be able to satisfy the commissioner that he is a fit person to engage in the business to be covered by the licence. The commissioner will have to take account of any history of fraud, any contravention of a provision of this or other consumer protection legislation, and any discrimination on the grounds of sex, colour, race or origin."—[Official Report, 14th November 1973; Vol. 864, c. 513.]
At that time the right hon. Member for Down, South was still a Member of this House, still a member of the Conservative Party. Assiduous attender as he then was, he did not divide the House. The Second Reading of that Bill went through without a Division.
The importance of this amendment has been greatly exaggerated. I believe that the rules of natural justice are of great importance. It seems to me that the provisions of this Bill, as the provisions of the Sex Discrimination Bill and the Consumer Credit Bill, are matters to be taken into account. There is no provision that forces any professional body to act against what it believes to be right.
The hon. Member for Wolverhampton, South-West (Mr. Budgen) placed great weight on the instinctive sense of justice and absolute rightness of any professional body. In fact, he went so far as to say that no legislation could be passed in this House which did not command an instantaneous echo in the heart of every dentist in the country. I thought that that was going a little far, despite the fact that I have great respect for dentists, as for other professions.
This legislation allows great discretion to remain with the professional bodies in adjudicating on these matters. What weight they give to racial discrimination and whether it is relevant to a person's character in the context are matters for the professional body to determine. If it is thought to be relevant, and if weight is attached to it, it should be taken into account.
The hon. Member also ignored subsection (3) of the clause to which

Amendment No. 10 relates—Clause 32—which states:
In proceedings brought under this Act against any person in respect of an act alleged to have been done by an employee of his, it shall be a defence for that person to prove that he took such steps as were reasonably practicable to prevent the employee from doing that act, or from doing in the course of his employment acts of that description.
I do not think that this is oppressive legislation. There is nothing here which fetters the right of the professional body to make its own decision about the relevance of this consideration or the weight which should be attached to it. There is nothing in it to exclude any defence that individual concerned may bring forward. It says effectively, as do the Consumer Credit Act and the Sex Discrimination Act, that a history of discrimination is something which can be taken into account in order to judge whether a person is a fit and proper person to uphold the high considerations involved in carrying out professional duties.
I do not think it is reasonable to say that, if we were to strike this out of the Bill, a persistent history of discrimination should be something that a body should not take into account.

Mr. Budgen: The right hon. Gentleman argues that merely having to have regard to the evidence is relatively unimportant. What about the analogy of criminal law and asking the jury to have regard to previous convictions? This is very important. No one knows what weight a professional body would give to the practice of unlawful discrimination.

Mr. Jenkins: The hon. Member really cannot stand on his head completely within the space of 20 minutes or so. He addressed a most powerful appeal to me earlier about the infinite wisdom and great intelligence of professional bodies. He is now saying that they cannot be trusted to apply any sense of balance at all. The two points are contradictory. I am confident that individual professional bodies will do as we hope.
It should be noted that Clause 11 (2) is concerned not with isolated acts of discrimination but with a course of discrimination which has been practicsed, and it is totally unreasonable to say that this is something which should not be


taken into account together with other character considerations.

Mr. Lawrence: It is astonishing how Labour Members, who were recently heard repeating time and again their concern for liberties, react when a matter is pointed out which blatantly undermines the liberties of people. They carry on assuring us, as the Home Secretary has just done, that natural justice is of importance to them.
One of the fundamental rules of our legal system is that a person should be responsible for his own wrongs. An exception is made in certain cases where a person is held to be responsible for the wrongs of others who are working as an arm of the principal person, as an employee under his authority and command or as an agent who is taken to have the authority and command of the principal. Occasionally the law bends itself to a situation where responsibility is attributed to a person who did not know about the wrong-doing, where it is in the interests of public policy that it should happen, as, for example, in the case of a publican who is held responsible when an employee serves a customer who is under age. Another example is in the food and drugs legislation, where a milk-producing company is held responsible for the wrongs of someone way down the chain for producing in a bottle some article which is offensive. It is decided in such cases that, as a matter of public policy and on a matter of public health and safety, an exception should be made.
But until the Sex Discrimination Act—and I am bound to admit to my shame that until the right hon. Member for Down, South (Mr. Powell) drew my attention to it I was not aware of the fact—no man was held liable for the faults of any other person at a time when he did not even know that person, and when he did not have any responsibility for those faults. He is held responsible, perhaps without time limit, and perhaps from a time when he was involved in some other trade or occupation. Why has the law reached out its tentacles to cast blame and attribute wrong to someone of whom common sense cries out that not only is there no responsibility but that in all good sense no responsibility can be laid at that person's door? This measure is to that extent truly grotesque.
The Home Secretary has drawn attention to another item of legislation which he claims to be another precedent. In this regard, however, it is no precedent. The legislation to which he referred attributes wrong to a wrong-doer, not casting blame for faults done by others at a time when he did not know or ought not to have known of them or for whom there was no responsibility. The necessary proof of this offence is not merely evidence which is admissible in a court of law or tribunal, subject to proof and to the calling of witnesses to cross-examination—

Mr. Roy Jenkins: I have listened to many of the hon. Member's speeches over the last few months. Is he a lawyer? I understood that he was. If so, has he heard of the law of master and servant and of vicarious liability?

Mr. Lawrence: I always find the Home Secretary's observations somewhat objectionable. I find that one even more objectionable and offensive than usual. He knows full well that I am a lawyer, and he shows by his observation that he knows far less about the law of master and servant than I do.

Mr. Budgen: Ask him the relevance of that law.

Mr. Lawrence: I shall not be provoked by observations of that sort. I am endeavouring to be constructive. [Interruption.] It ill befits Labour Members, who do not care whether the liberty of the subject is infringed or not, to mutter "Dear, oh dear" and complain about our considering the Bill at 1 o'clock in the morning when they want to go home.

1.0 a.m.

Mr. Budgen: To put a more favourable gloss on the Home Secretary's intervention, does it not demonstrate that we have got into a frightfully dangerous muddle between civil and criminal law? Was not my hon. Friend saying that in criminal law it is almost unknown for a defendant to be vicariously liable for the acts of another? Here we have an extraordinary hybrid situation between civil liability and criminal liability. The unhappy defendant will find himself, in effect, charged with a criminal offence and vicariously liable for the wrongs of others.

Mr. Lawrence: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for adding his weight to the point I am making.
The clause does not refer to things done in the course of employment—which is a requirement of the master and servant legislation. The clause says:
any of his employees or agents (whether past or present), has practised unlawful discrimination
and so on. There is no requirement that the offensive act should have been in the course of employment under the authority of the employer who is to be subject to the allegation. I strongly advise the Home Secretary to take instructions before he makes interventions on matters about which he knows nothing and cares little.
In our courts, whether civil, criminal or hybrid tribunals, evidence normally means admissable evidence which can be cross-examined to. Evidence is a term of art in our law. The rules of evidence are meant to protect the individual who is at risk from rumour, hearsay or evidence which is not admissible.
Looking at the subsection to see what evidence is required, whether it is evidence admissible in the courts or evidence acted upon in our courts after the due processes of protection of the individual have been gone through, we see that the opposite is the case—that any evidence, rumour, hearsay or malice will do. We have a truly fantastic situation. It would be laughable to have legislation of this kind considered in the Chamber, at whatever hour, were its likely effect not disastrous.
There will be those who will want to use the easy opportunity provided by this legislation to drag those whom they wish to discredit through the courts and the tribunal system for which this legislation provides. There will be those who, out of malice or spite or for the advancement of a cause which they believe to be right even though everyone else may not, and those who, because the rules do not exist, because the burdens of proof are easy because any evidence will suffice, any rumour, hearsay or malice will do, will drag other people through the miserable experience of challenge and having to justify themselves.
What the Government are doing is providing an instrument for the malevolent to

advance their mischief. How can that conceivably be right? How can it be right in terms of financial cost? How can it be termed right in terms of good and decent relations?
As my hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton, South-West (Mr. Budgen) has said, ultimately the greatest evil is the indignation that all this will cause, the anger, the irritation and even the hatred that will be engendered by sweeping away all the time-honoured rules in order to make it easy for those who are malevolent to pick bones unjustifiably. In the cause of good race relations, I beg the Home Secretary to drop the subsection and to let us get on with some more important parts of the Bill.

Mr. Mark Carlisle: I have listened to the debate while mainly waiting to hear a later debate on the effect of the Bill on clubs. Having listened to what has been said, I ask the Home Secretary to consider whether this subsection is not wildly and unnecessarily wide in its terms.
I was not very impressed by the Home Secretary's justification—the fact that a similar section appears in an Act passed by his own Government, from the same Department and the same Home Secretary, last year. It does not seem necessarily correct to say that because this provision was in the Sex Discrimination Act which he introduced and which was not opposed at the time it is therefore wrong that it should be opposed on this occasion.
As I understand it, the Bill is concerned with attempting to deal with discrimination against minority groups. In principle, unlike some of those who have spoken in the debate, I tend to support the aim behind the Bill—the need to prevent discrimination so as to ensure that there is equality of opportunity for all people in this country irrespective of the colour of their skins.
However, surely the Home Secretary would agree that this subsection has nothing to do with avoiding discrimination against coloured minorities. It is a means of adding an additional form of penalty upon anyone who, at any stage and at any time, apparently, appears to have been involved, innocently or otherwise, in any form of discrimination.
I would not go as far as my hon. Friend the Member for Burton (Mr.


Lawrence) in my main objection. However, it seems to me that the subsection is totally otiose, unnecessary and in principle somewhat unattractive. As I understand it, what it says is that any professional body, when required to look at a person's character, shall be required to take note of or to have regard to anything in his past, or the pasts of those who have been his agent or his employee, involved with the practice of discrimination.
This provision goes extremely wide. The Home Secretary said that it was right that a body should take note of a persistent history of discrimination. He may be right. A persistent history of discrimination practised by an individual might be suitable matter on which a professional body could decide that the person in question was not of good character and was unsuitable for membership of that body. But, surely, that is a matter for that body.
The Bill does not say that a persistent history of discrimination by an individual may make him unsuitable for membership of some other body. It says that that body shall be required to have regard to any evidence tending to show that not necessarily that individual but his agents or employees have at some stage been involved in the practice of discrimination. The phrase "shall have regard to" may give undue prominence to that evidence when the tribunal is assessing the character of the individual. It would be far better to leave it to the good sense of the tribunal.
The tribunal or body required by law to consider a person's good character is bound to take account of evidence of past discrimination by his employees or agents, even if the person resented the discrimination and his decision to leave his employment and join another body may have been caused by his revulsion against that discrimination. A person's employees may insist on practising discrimination in deciding whom to accept as fellow members of a work force. If he resented it, left his job and applied to join a body or authority for which his character had to be assessed, the evidence of his previous job would have to be taken into consideration against him.
It is extraordinary that the Bill refers to the need to have regard to any evidence tending to show that a person committed

any act of discrimination, whether past or present, at a time when, with the blessing of the Home Secretary, the House recently passed the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act, which specifically provides that a man applying for a job need not disclose that he has had a criminal conviction provided that it was more than two years ago.
If I am convicted of fraud and serve a sentence of up to two years' imprisonment, there will come a time when I shall be able to apply to become a member of a body which requires an assessment of my character, and I shall not have to disclose or answer any questions about the fraud for which I served a term of imprisonment. If I did not go to prison, I should not have to admit the offence three years after I committed it. That same body will be required to take note of evidence from perhaps 20 years ago of the commission of an act which can be said to be an act of discrimination.
That is wildly out of proportion. An act of discrimination is to last for the rest of a person's life, whereas a criminal offence is to be forgiven if he has been of good character for two, five or 10 years. If I am right in my understanding of the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act, that is another argument why the right hon. Gentleman may feel that the clause is unduly wide in its interpretation.

1.15 a.m.

Mr. Roy Jenkins: I think that the points which the hon. and learned Member for Runcorn (Mr. Carlisle) has made clearly merit careful consideration. I am at present persuaded that the subsection is right and that the fears he has expressed, which I cannot dismiss out of hand, are misplaced, but I should like to consider his arguments carefully to see whether there is any contradiction between the Bill and the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act, which was not a Government Act but which we facilitated through the House.
Without any promise as to our attitude, because I am at present persuaded that the provision is right, I should like to take into account what the hon. and learned Gentleman has said. I could not accept an amendment at this stage, but I shall consider before the Bill reaches another place whether his arguments are as forceful as some of them sounded when he spoke.

Mr. Carlisle: I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for what he has said.

Mr. Ronald Bell: The amendment has commanded a great deal of support on this side of the House, and were there not a Trappist vow in operation on the Government Benches I feel that it would have attracted a great deal of support there as well. No one can be happy about subsection (2).
The Home Secretary has just said that he will give consideration to one of the arguments put by my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Runcorn (Mr. Carlisle)—that is, the contrast between the provisions of the Bill and those of the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act—but I find it surprising that it is that inconsistency which has alerted the right hon. Gentleman to the fact that the provisions of the clause are so unreasonable. It would appear as though all the arguments deployed before had no effect on him, but that when he sees an inconsistency between the clause and the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act he begins to move.
But the thing goes further and deeper than that. My hon. and learned Friend the Member for Royal Tunbridge Wells (Mr. Mayhew) laid great emphasis on the question of precedent, and he has been attacked for it, notably by the Secretary of State. He was right to lay emphasis upon that question. We have had with us, although he is not present now, the hon. and learned Member for Bradford, West (Mr. Lyons), who has interrupted speeches or made short speeches time and again saying "What are you fussing about? All this was done in the Sex Discrimination Act. There is no ado about it. Why should we not do it again?"
That is a dangerous argument. Having said that, however, and to some extent agreed with my hon. and learned Friend about the validity of his argument on ground of precedent, I would go further, or perhaps in a slightly different direction, and say that I am not so much troubled about where it leads as to where it has led. This is not the thin end of the wedge; it is the thick end. There may be worse to come, but this is bad enough. We lay down in an Act of Parliament in a peremptory manner that these bodies shall have regard to gossip or suspicion. It is evidence which tends

to show—not evidence which shows, but evidence which tends to show. That is what it comes to.
The Home Secretary says that these are very reputable and respectable bodies. Some of my hon. Friends have emphasised the weightiness of these bodies. It is said that they will use their discretion. They can always use their discretion. They can do that now without any Bill or Act. The purpose of the subsection which we are seeking to delete is to tell them at least in some degree how they are to use their discretion. It has no other purpose. If they would do this anyway, we would not have the subsection. It is to persuade them to do something that they would not do but for the subsection. That is the whole purpose of it.
I think that it goes further than that. This is the around of objection on which again my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Royal Tunbridge Wells laid a good deal of emphasis. He referred to the presumptuous nature of a prescription of this kind. I think one can go further than that, because, when we reflect upon it, this is a proposed law to define what is permissible in the realm of thought and conduct.
The Home Secretary may say that the whole Bill is about that. It tells people how they are to behave in the matter of race relations. I and some others present here now object to the whole principle of this kind of law anyway—what has been called over and over again the educated use of the law. It is political law, but there are also political laws which do not have this particular character of seeking to be educative and to mould men's minds. That is what this is seeking to do.
But while it is true that the whole Bill is a Bill to put a procrustean clamp on men's minds, this particular subsection is more than that, because it purports to define good character and to that extent to define the boundaries within which a difference of opinion may be exercised without being outlawed by the State. This is a particularly pernicious element in this kind of legislation. As has been pointed out, in a sense it is very extreme in that direction because it also embodies guilt by association. That is bad enough. We can strike anyone dead through guilt by association.
I remember speaking once at Leeds University. I found leaflets distributed saying that I was a dreadful person. I may be, but the reasons given were not very convincing. I was a member of the Monday Club, and also in the club were so-and-so, who were also members of some other organisation, of which so-and-so were members, and those people on some occasions had said this or that. It was all set out. Therefore, it was said that I was an awful rogue. That was guilt by association at two or three removes. Here, all that I have been describing—the pernicious character of the Bill—is attached to anything done by servants or agents, or which has at some time been done by them. It is guilt by suspicion and on association.
To return to my theme of the definition of the permissible in the realm of thought, this is peculiar to subsection (2), because this is a clause defining good character and saying what shall be taken into account as evidence of bad character.
It seems to me, as it has to at least one of my hon. Friends, that when we reach an area where hysterial takes over in the thinking of the Home Secretary and those who advise him. I should not say "those who advise him" because I do not know. Perhaps they wring their hands and weep bitter tears and cannot do anything about it. The Home Secretary must carry responsibility for those things which are done, never mind his advisers and, I suppose, never mind the ambience of junior Ministers who surround him. This attack on discrimination, which is now a phobia, a neurosis, a hysteria, is something which ought not go unchallenged. Subsection (2), which carries that attack into the definition of "good character", is the occasion to challenge it.
I have always attacked this criticism of discrimination. I have never hesitated to defend discrimination in this House or in any public place. I have said, and it is obviously true—I cannot think how it is not recognised by the Home Secretary—that discrimination is the essential human character, the very principle of progress, the observation of differences and the evolution of differences on which all progress depends. The Home Secretary is exercising that func-

tion of discrimination at this moment as he looks at his piece of paper. That is what this argument is all about.
When we come to the question of race, ethnic origins and all these things, who is the Home Secretary, and who is Parliament, to say that there should be one view about these things? How do they know how much differences of race matter? I would have thought that the science of genetics is one of the youngsters of science. It has made tremendous strides over the last few years, but it got started only about 10 years ago. The Home Secretary does not know whether race matters. No one knows and no one will know for quite a while.
Great strides have taken place, but whether the inferiorities that one observes are inherent and predominant, in the sense of being things to be estimated in millennia, or things which can be dealt with by environmental treatment, by priming the pump, I do not know, the Home Secretary does not know and the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, sitting next to him, does not know either. No one knows.
What on earth are we doing having a law about it? It is the Lysenkoism of Western democracy, and the Home Secretary, who is a person of education, culture and perspective, is lending his authority, and his name, to statutory Lysenkoism by the banning of certain views of essentially scientific matters which probably runs against the evidence. In any case, whether the evidence is totally inconclusive or not, the Home Secretary is quite incompetent to prescribe for others what they shall think about the significance of race.
The right hon. Gentleman is proposing in his legislation that anyone who thinks that race matters a great deal shall be subject to the sanction of indefinite imprisonment. In subsection (2) he is proposing that anyone who takes a different view from him and his political associates about the importance of race, and the differences between different races, shall be treated as a person of bad character.
I have a certain amount of understanding, I hope sympathy, of why people adopt this rabid view. They are, of course, people whose own racial connections have been bitterly bruised in recent


times. I blame Adolf Hitler more than I blame the Home- Secretary, because it has been almost impossible for a long time—

Mr. Tebbit: That is very fair.

Mr. Bell: It is a correct comment, because Hitler set standards of brutality and viciousness which have obscured the whole subject, which ought to be one of calm and scientific appraisal, because it is an area in which human knowledge has not yet attained certainty by a very long way. Because of those terrible things which happened, I think that there has been an emotional background out of which legislation and law has emerged.
The subject has also been influenced by the civil rights movement in the United States of America, where the question was totally different and where the issue was whether people, who were not of the dominant European race, have the kind of civil legal rights which we take for granted in this country.
1.30 a.m.
It cannot be sufficiently emphasised that no question of that kind has ever arisen in relation to this kind of legislation in this country. This legislation, and particularly subsection (2) is aimed at rewarding by law the social status of particular communities, the esteem in which they are held in the minds of the native inhabitants of this country, and that is not a legitimate use of the law.
But if it be said to me that the House of Commons has given a Second Reading to the Bill, it has gone through its Committee stage, it comes back to us now on Report and it is not competent for me to take the broad sweep of the argument that this is an abuse of the law-making process, I say, until we reach Third Reading, so be it, but that it is legitimate to say on this amendment that this is the ultimate in this use of the law—the destruction or the impairment of men's characters because they have held and shown views about the significance of racial differences which are not acceptable to the political establishment in Britain.
This is neither the occasion nor the time of the morning to go into these matters deeply—

Mr. Bidwell: Have a go.

Mr. Bell: I do not need the encouragement of the hon. Member for Ealing, Southall (Mr. Bidwell) to approach these matters in a serious way. If I am doing anything I am attacking the political, rabid approach to matters which should not be approached in this rabid, political way at all.
These are tremendous questions, which underlie the problems of our civilisation. I do not suppose that there is an hon. Member in the House who does not believe in the evolutionary theories, basically of Darwin—the survival of the fittest, the elimination of the unfit—or who does not recognise the extreme problems, morally and emotionally, which the ruthlessness of that doctrine raises for all of us, and the unresolved difficulties of applying that undoubted underlying truth to the structure of an organised human community, and the reinterpretations which are necessary of what is fitness and which should survive.
These are great problems. This is not the moment for me to go into them, but only to point to their existence and how one adapts the theory of evolution to the frame structure of a society and applies it not entirely to the individual as such but to the individual as an element in the community.

Dr. M. S. Miller: On a point of order—

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Oscar Murton): Order. The Chair was about to interrupt the hon. and learned Member. I should be grateful if he would confine his arguments to the amendment, rather than expatiate on the Darwinian theories.

Mr. Bell: I am doing precisely that, Mr. Deputy Speaker. The amendment would leave out subsection (2), which says—I exaggerate for the sake of clarity—that a man is a man of bad character if he is attracted to any of these theories that I am describing. Unless he is prepared to accept, in all his conduct, past and present, that any such deviant view from the view of the Government Front Bench is a form of evil, he is stamped as a man of bad character. As I said, it is this subsection, because it represents this use of a law right into the realm of character,


which makes it an appropriate place in the Bill to mention these considerations.
What I was about to say was that these mysteries underlying the processes of life are not fit subjects for propaganda or legislation. I do not believe that that point could have been made any more shortly than I have made it. It is because I think that, and because I think that my hon. Friends very largely—I hope I am not presumptuous—share that view, that I am totally opposed to the subsection. I venture to hope that there are some Labour Members who are not unsympathetic to what I have been saying, even at 25 minutes to 2 o'clock in the morning when they would rather not be here.
These are big subjects. I hope that the Home Secretary will perhaps give some thought to this and realise that this debate is not merely about the inconsistency between the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act and subsection (2). That was the starting point. I was outraged almost by the superficiality of that reaction. There is a political hysteria neurosis about discrimination—that word which is used rather like a rotten tomato in political controversy. It is regarded as an undoubted evil.
It was not so many years ago, before this American disease spread over us, that discrimination was always in a good sense. It never had a bad sense at all. Now, a person can go to prison for it. The same is true of the Sex Discrimination Act. A person can go to prison for discriminating on the grounds of sex. When I was young a person could go to prison for not discriminating on the grounds of sex. It is a most extraordinary turn of events.
I ask the Home Secretary, who is no punch-drunk politician, who is not averse to directing his intellect to the problems thrown up by a free society, to question most fundamentally whether he is not perpetrating the Lysenkoism of which I accused him—the canonisation of particular scientific views, which in the case of Lysenko were totally invalid anyway. Magna est veritas et praevalebit. Truth is indeed great and it will prevail.
The right hon. Gentleman bears a heavy responsibility when he uses the coercive machinery of the law in the manner in which he is using it to suppress that feeling which is the deepest and

most precious heritage of the British people, which ought to be exercised in the widest and most generous spirit and should never be circumscribed, except in cases of clear necessity, by that Parliament which is supposed to protect the British people against the arbitrary exercise of power.

Mr. John Mendelson: The hon. and learned Member for Beaconsfield (Mr. Bell) has reached a point in his argument which, though dealing with the context of the amendment, has provided some of the reasons why he believes that hon. Members, particularly supporters of the Government, are sensitive on this subject. The hon. and learned Member introduced the name of Hitler. That perhaps ought to make some of his hon. Friends cautious in judging how far they can follow him.

Mr. Stokes: Some of us fought against Hitler.

Mr. Mendelson: I did not interrupt the hon. and learned Member. I hope that I shall have the opportunity of addressing myself to the amendment and making some comments on his speech. I said that that argument might make some hon. Members on the Opposition side more cautious about following the hon. and learned Member for Beaconsfield, who said that there might be motives among those who were sensitive about the subject.
It is possible for the drafting of the clause or the amendment to be objectively discussed. But it is not pure accident that there was no such objection to the words when they applied to equality between the sexes. Neither blindness nor absentmindedness made people forget about the significance of the phrasing then. Now, however, we are dealing with coloured people. As hon. Members of the oldest democratic Parliament, we should be frank and acknowledge that many people find the text difficult because we are discussing coloured people.

Mr. Ronald Bell: I wish to correct the hon. Member. I speak from recollection and I have not checked, but I think that I adverted both to the provision and to its wording on Second Reading of the Sex Discrimination Act.

Mr. Mendelson: I accept that the hon. and learned Member for Beaconsfield referred to the matter, but I am speaking of other hon. Members who did not object at the time.
We know what we are talking about. Because coloured immigrants—not other immigrants—are involved, many people find it objectionable. The hon. and learned Gentleman referred to people who have views about these matters. I want to introduce the view of Rousseau, the well-known French philosopher who has written a short book on the subject. He does not fit into any of the categories to which the hon. and learned Gentleman referred. He belongs to the French nation, which has not been written down racially. He is not black or yellow or a member of one of the religious communities which have been persecuted. He says in his book that we must be particularly sensitive about race relations and the equality of the races, for one reason—because when we attack people of a different race we attack them on an issue which is not subject to change.
When an hon. Member of one party attacks an hon. Member of another party, when an adherent of one philosophical school attacks a member of another philosopical school, when a member of the trade union movement attacks a member of the CBI or when a member of a trade organisation attacks a trade unionist, in all those cases redemption is possible. When Englishmen fought each other in the religious wars it was possible to hope for redemption, but for Sartre an attack on race leaves no road open for redemption. If one dies for a race, one dies as a member of that race. That is why, says Jean-Paul Sartre, the attack on race by Hitler and his supporters meant that they had murder in their hearts. That is why the attack on coloured people today by members of the National Front and those who echo their propaganda is of the same character. We have not only a right but a duty to be equally sensitive to those attacks.
1.45 a.m.
The other day one of the leaders of the National Front was interviewed on London Weekend Television and was asked, with reference to some of the recent agitation, "What is your view now on coloured immigrants?" He replied "There must

be no further immigration of any kind." The reporter asked "What then?" and the National Front leader replied "And then those immigrants who are here must leave." Taken aback, the reporter said "But what if they do not want to leave?" The National Front leader laughed and said "They will be leaving." That is the tendency of the propaganda that is going on today. The people concerned have a policy of enforced repatriation in their minds.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. The hon. Gentleman is going wide of the amendment. I think that he has made his point. Will he now confine himself to the amendment?

Mr. Mendelson: I listened carefully, as did the House, to the hon. and learned Member for Beaconsfield enlarging for 18 minutes upon the philosophical importance of the amendment. I intend towards the end of my remarks to deal exclusively, and much more briefly than did the hon. and learned Member, with the amendment. I claim, however, the same right to discuss the philosophical background of the clause and the amendment.
I can well understand that this is regarded as uncomfortable by some hon. Members who do not wish to face the problems I am putting, but they must be faced. In recent months too many statements and speeches have been made that were too close to the remarks by the leader of the National Front in that television interview. Unless we face these matters, we are not doing our job.
The hon. and learned Member is prepared to face the problems. However much I may disagree with all his views and philosophy, I know that he will not evade them. He argued that there is no knowledge that the Home Secretary might have about the position on race. The hon. Gentleman is wrong. It is not the Home Secretary's prerogative to demand that in our legislation we should simply embody the philosophy of the leaders of the Labour Party. That is a propagandist view. Legislation is not the hand-maiden of the philosophical view of any one party. The hon. and learned Gentleman knows full well that no such attempt is being made. What is happening is much more modest and limited. There can be argument about how much


can be achieved with legislation, but the whole aim is to see that legal equality is enforced—no more and no less.
I am amazed that we should not have the right hon. Member for Down, South (Mr. Powell) on our side in this argument. This is the first time that I have had an opportunity in one of these debates to say to him—

Mr. Brotherton: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Is the Common Market really in order?

Mr. Deputy Speaker: I think we must wait to hear what the hon. Gentleman has to say.

Mr. Mendelson: I have no intention of discussing the Common Market, Mr. Deputy Speaker, as you well know. I say to the right hon. Member for Down, South in a passing reference that throughout the debates on the Common Market he used to appeal to us, with the approval of many hon. Members on both sides of the House, that Parliament ensured the liberty of all subjects. For the right hon. Gentleman not to be in the forefront in defending the rights of coloured subjects and immigrants like all other British subjects is a great disappointment to me and many other hon. Members.
At this stage it is of crucial significance that this legislation should be supported by a large majority. It cannot be ignored by those who happen to be in the Chamber tonight that the official leadership of the Conservative Party is not opposing the legislation on principle. There is room for honourable disagreement on some of the details, but I regard it as a positive fact that on principle the legislation is not opposed officially. Those who are opposed on principle can only help those who wish for an unhappy conclusion to the policies we are trying to put forward for all people, whatever their colour.
My right hon. Friend the Home Secretary has reasonably said that he will consider the point made by the hon. and learned Member for Runcorn (Mr. Carlisle), who was a Home Office Minister. However, but for the fact that the underlying factor of race is involved—and there are many hon. Members involved in these debates whose attitude on race is not democratic and not what

it should be—there could be much more agreement. [Interruption.] Let the hon. Member for Chingford (Mr. Tebbit) laugh as much as he likes. He will be ashamed in years to come at the attitude he took tonight, and so will the hon. Member for Burton (Mr. Lawrence). I name the hon. Gentleman deliberately. He will be ashamed of the attitude he has taken today. In a shameful story, he has told us about teaching other people our language—as if we did not know what he meant. He wants to appear as a racialist, which he is indeed.
When considering the amendment there may be room to look at the text, but let there be no pretence that those who want to create an atmosphere of bitterness against overseas immigrants are using semantics for purposes that they will not admit to themselves or to the House.

Mr. Ian Gow: First, I say a few words to the hon. Member for Penistone (Mr. Mendelson), to whom the House listened with attention. I share with him, as do all my hon. Friends, a detestation of policies which discriminate unfairly and deprive citizens who are not of the same colour as we are of equality of opportunity and equality before the law, but I think he will recognise that it is possible for those of us who share that view to believe that it is necessary to examine legislation carefully. Surely it is possible to have the same objectives as the hon. Gentleman and at the same time to support the amendment and have reservations about legislation of this sort being the best way of improving race relations.
The House has a clear duty, sharing as I believe we all do a common objective—namely, to scrutinise this legislation. There are those of us on this side of the House who feel as sincerely as does the hon. Gentleman about this legislation, but there are hon. Members on the Opposition Benches who have doubts about it and who support the amendment.
I turn to the intervention made by the Home Secretary earlier in the debate. In answer to an intervention by my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Runcorn (Mr. Carlisle), the right hon. Gentleman said that he would look again at Clause 12(2). I wish to put two further


points to the Home Secretary, and I am sorry that he is not present.
One point relates to Clause 32(3). My hon. and learned Friend the Member for Beaconsfield (Mr. Bell), in moving the amendment, pointed out that Clause 32(3) had no relevance to Clause 12(2). When the Home Secretary made his intervention, however, he said that Clause 32(3) applied to Clause 12(2). I do not believe that the protection provided in Clause 32(3) can apply to Clause 12 because that subsection can take effect only when proceedings are brought under the Act. There is no reference in Clause 12 to proceedings. I shall be grateful if the Home Secretary will fulfil his undertaking to my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Runcorn to look at that matter and discover whether he inadvertently misled the House in saying that Clause 32(3) could apply to Clause 12.
There is another point on which the Home Secretary may unwittingly have misled the House. In his intervention he referred to a "history of discrimination". Those were his words, and I quote them carefully. The right hon. Gentleman appeared to believe that cognisance could be taken by that authority or body referred to in Clause 12 only where there had been a history of discrimination. Here again, there is nothing in the wording of Clause 12 which refers to a history of discrimination, yet those were the precise words used by the Home Secretary when he intervened in the debate.

Mr. Powell: I suggest that it was possibly to avoid a clash in the legislation that the extraordinary wording "evidence tending to show" rather than any words relating to a conviction or finding were introduced into this Bill and into the 1975 Act.

Mr. Gow: I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman.
2.0 a.m.
I turn now to consider more widely the effect of Clause 12(2). After a galaxy of counsel, I hesitate, as a member of the more lowly branch of the legal profession, to address the House on this subject. I talk about the solicitors' profession and the responsibilities which will now fall on the Law Society and the Master of the Rolls because that is a pro-

fessional body of which I have a little knowledge. Before a person can be admitted as a solicitor of the Supreme Court, he or she must satisfy the Master of the Rolls that he or she is a fit and proper person to act as a solicitor. It may surprise the House to learn that I passed the test.
Will there be a duty laid upon professional bodies, and notably on the Law Society and the Master of the Rolls, actually to make inquiries to see whether there is, in the words of the Bill,
evidence tending to show that he, or any of his employees or agents, whether past or present, has practised unlawful discrimination"?
Will there be a duty on the Master of the Rolls to make inquiries of employees, past and present, of the person about to to be admitted? What is meant by this requirement to impose on the authority or body a duty to have regard?
Even if I were the most enthusiastic supporter of the principles behind Clause 12, I would find it extremely difficult to justify the wording of subsection (2). It is a very imprecise duty on the Law Society and the Master of the Rolls. The reference to "evidence tending to show" and the duty to seek out that evidence is really legal phaseology for which there is no precedent, apart from the Act that we passed last year. This seems to me to be making a law which it is impossible to follow.
The actual wording of subsection (2) is very difficult to interpret. It is immensely difficult even for lawyers. We bring this House into disrepute and we lower the respect in which it is held when we pass legislation which is extremely difficult to interpret or which is, frankly, ludicrous, as the provisions of this subsection are. To impose a duty on bodies or authorities about the conferring of distinction or privilege on those who are otherwise suitable to carry out office is to seek to impose on them a duty which, with the best will in the world, they will find impossible.
To pass legislation of that kind when the laws we are passing do not commend themselves or command universal assent anyway, and to heap this absurdity on the mass of other absurdities, not only does great damage to the cause of race relations but serves to increase the sense of frustration, irritation, and incomprehensibility which our legislation too often


causes in the minds of the people we are trying to serve.

Mr. Tebbitt: I am glad, Mr. Deputy Speaker, that you were so indulgent towards the hon. Member for Penistone (Mr. Mendelson). That allowed us a sight of his mind which is helpful in considering the amendment. He referred to myself and some of my hon. Friends concerning what he described as our undemocratic views on racial matters. But he did not mean "undemocratic". He ment that they were objectionable to him.
It is no evidence to suggest that the views which might be held, for example, by the right hon. Member for Down, South (Mr. Powell) are not the views of the majority of the people of this country. If they are the views of the majority they are very democratic views, however objectionable they may seem to the hon. Member for Penistone. That is what "democratic" means—the voice of the people, not the voice of a small group which has decided that it knows better than the people.
The whole problem which undermines this legislation is that in the name of democracy the views of a tiny minority are being foisted upon all the people of the country. I will not submit to being referred to as having undemocratic views by someone whose views are a minority cult. The whole of this wretched legislation is a minority cult, and I hope that like many other cults it will go out of fashion and be dropped before many years are out.

Mr. Budgen: Will my hon. Friend think for a moment on what is or is not a democratic view? Surely any view is democratic, because the essence of democracy is that all views shall be expressed in a democratic forum, and it is after the clash of those views that the decision is taken. It is only those with authoritarian tendencies who seek to exclude the views they do not like, describing them as undemocratic.

Mr. Tebbit: I do not differ from my hon. Friend.
The hon. Member for Penistone also implied that there was something very sinister about the way in which my hon. Friends and I were expressing our concern over the Bill after the way in which

we let the Sex Discrimination Bill slip through. His attitude was that there was something distinctly nasty about this matter and that, whereas we did not mind the sex discrimination legislation, we objected to racial discrimination legislation. How did he account for the fact that we also allowed to slip through quietly and easily the Consumer Credit Act 1974, which in Section 25(2)(c) refers to the sanctions to be taken against those who have
practised discrimination on grounds of sex, colour, race or ethnic or national origins"?
The hon. Member for Penistone cannot have it both ways. Those references to racial discrimination also slipped through.
The hon. Gentleman cannot say that we suddenly object to this legislation because we are racialists when we did not object to the Sex Discrimination Act and let it through.
Two things have happened. We have become a little more vigilant and we are beginning to learn fro mexperience that this type of legislation is not merely ineffective but is positively harmful in our society. The Home Secretary should not be allowed to get away with his view that once we have passed one silly piece of legislation we ought to allow lots of other silly pieces of legislation to go through. "One bitten, twice shy" is a good motto. The Home Secretary seems to think that, having been bitten once, every time we see the wretched dog again we should stick our hand in its mouth to get another bite. I hope we can learn from experience instead of merely repeat experiences, however distasteful.
The Home Secretary conceded that my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Runcorn (Mr. Carlisle) had raised an important point and agreed to look at it again. Not for the first time, I do not take him too seriously.
Earlier, the right hon. Gentleman leant heavily on the precedents of the Consumer Credit and Sex Discrimination Acts. The clause we are discussing is taken directly from Section 13 of the latter Act. If the Home Secretary was serious in what he said to my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Runcorn, he would have to consider not only an amendment to this Bill but a change in


the Sex Discrimination Act. It would be illogical to have different provisions in two measures dealing with the same sort of matter.
Considering the state of the Government's legislative time table, I am not sure how the Government Chief Whip or the Leader of the House would react if the Home Secretary said that he wanted an amending Bill on a major piece of legislation. It may happen. We shall wait and see.
The easiest way for the Home Secretary to give an earnest of his intentions would be for him to come back and say that he is impressed with the arguments and takes them seriously. The proper way forward to avoid any muddle would be to adjourn now, before the conclusion of the debate, and resume on Tuesday—which would be much more convenient than taking the Finance Bill on that day. The Home Secretary could then tell us what he intends to do instead of trying to get away with half an undertaking that he might look at this matter and then sneaking out of the Chamber.
The Long Title of the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act, which seems to have influenced the Home Secretary, reads:
An Act to rehabilitate offenders who have not been recnvicted of any serious offence for periods of years, to penalise the unauthorised disclosure of their previous convictions,".
It is interesting to note that, if a man were convicted under the Public Order Act for an offence of a racial nature, it would not be possible for anyone to refer to his conviction once it had been spent. It would not be possible for the most learned body, when he applied for admission to its membership, to have any note of the fact that he had actually been convicted of a criminal offence relating to the sort of matters to which the Bill refers.

2.15 a.m.

Mr. Stanbrook: It is worse than that. Under the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act, to say that he had been convicted of such an offence would be punishable.

Mr. Tebbit: My hon. Friend is right. He says that the matter is worse than that. I usually find that when one consults a lawyer one finds that the matter is much worse than one expected it to be.

My hon. Friend confirms my usual feelings.
We have this quite ludicrous situation that if there is some tittle-tattle, some gossip or some evidence that tends to suggest that a man might be a racialist, that can for ever be brought against him.

Mr. Lawrence: It must be.

Mr. Tebbit: Indeed. If it was his chauffeur who had these undesirable traits, even that must be brought against the man. However, if the man had gone out on a National Front punch-up with the International Socialists or Tribunites and got himself into a terrible tangle and attacked a man because he happened to be black—or, indeed, white—and had been convicted of the offence, if after the conviction had become spent anyone mentioned it to the wretched board which it is proposed to create he would be guilty of an offence. Whatever the good intent of the Bill—if its intent be good—surely legislation which is as much of a muddle as this should have no place on the statute book.
I am glad that the Home Secretary has returned to his place. The Under-Secretary may already have told him of the way out of this muddle that we could find, giving him time to consider, so that before we come to a conclusion he could say what he proposes to do.

Mr. Lawrence: Is my hon. Friend aware that an assurance given by the Home Secretary is likely in the event to be worthless, if only because when they are drafting legislation of this kind parliamentary counsel have to take account of recent legislation, which may in some way or other affect the legislation they are drafting? It is inconceivable that the parliamentary draftsmen would have forgotten the implications of the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act when drafting the legislation currently before the House.

Mr. Tebbit: My hon. Friend says that it is inconceivable that the parliamentary draftsmen could have made a mistake of that sort. I yield to no one in my admiration of parliamentary draftsmen. However, I seem to remember that we recently had a procedural muddle, which resulted in a hold-up and an embarrassment to the Government's legislation, when the draftsmen apparently got themselves into a slight tangle about whether


a ship was an oil rig or whether it was not a ship. That rather shook my faith in parliamentary draftsmen. When I consider the number of times that the Government bring in technical amendments to Bills that have been drafted months previously, sometimes I think that parliamentary draftsmen—just sometimes—are a little careless.
Perhaps on this occasion the parliamentary draftsmen were no more careless than was the House. They picked up Section 13 of the Sex Discrimination Act and said "We have used it before. No one noticed anything wrong with it. We shall use it again." Who can blame them? It was our fault that we did not notice what was wrong with it before. When that wretched Act was going through Parliament, we should have tumbled to its relationship to the Rehabilitatioin of Offenders Act. All that we have said tonight about this Bill is as much a condemnation of its unfortunate sibling, the Sex Discrimination Act, as well.
My hon. Friends demonstrated the interaction between Clauses 12 and 13. It is necessary to have evidence which tends to show not that a man has been convicted but that he has practised racial discrimination. The Home Secretary threw in an additional complication by saying that a man has to have a history of practising racial discrimination. While the Home Secretary has been out of the Chamber. I have looked all through the Bill but I am darned if I can find any reference to the requirement to show a history of discrimination.

Mr. Ronald Bell: My hon. Friend cannot find it because it is not there. The Home Secretary dreamt that up out of the phrase "practising discrimination", which merely means showing discrimination.

Mr. Tebbit: I am grateful to my hon. and learned Friend. I can hardly believe it. The Home Secretary gets good reports in The Guardian, he lives in Holland Park or a similar sort of place and he has all the marks of a man who can discriminate between good and bad claret. Perhaps we shall have before long a Bill on that subject, from which the Home Secretary will be safe because he is shortly to go to Europe.
I cannot believe that a man of the right hon. Gentlemen's reputation would invent

a phrase and pray it in aid when it was not even in the Bill. That is fundamentally a dirty sort of trick, and I am unable to believe it of him. I hope that he has had time to find in his legislation the reference to a history of discrimination. If he cannot, I shall begin to lose faith in him and in The Guardian, Holland Park, the Fabian Society and all those other marks of British society that made Britain great. [Interruption.] There is nothing permissive in our society now. We are not permitted to decide whom we want to work with and whom we want in our own clubs.
Before long, the House of Commons will be the only decent club in London. It will be the only place where people are not foisted on us on the most remarkable grounds. [Interruption.] I hear a note of warning from the right hon. Member for Down, South (Mr. Powell). He has already tumbled to another Bill which may come before us—the House of Commons (Racial Balance) Bill, or even the House of Commons (Sexual Balance) Bill. We may find that we have a quota of black women who have to be accommodated. However, I do not want to go too far down that road. The Home Secretary will no doubt assure us that it is not in this Bill. I thought it might be because when I could not find the reference to a "history of discrimination" I thought I might have missed something else too.
When we discussed New Clause 3—

Mr. Ronald Bell: Before my hon. Friend moves on from Holland Park, I draw his attention to Clause 28, which reads:
In this section 'discriminatory practice' means the application of a requirement or condition which results in an act of discrimination.
It is clear that the word "act" there is used in relation to an act of discrimination. So I think that the Home Secretary must be nodding.

Mr. Tebbit: I am grateful to my hon. and learned Friend. No doubt the Home Secretary will sooner or later seek to speak again for himself on the matter. Perhaps he was having a quiet nod.
On New Clause 3 we attempted to ensure that an investigation under Clauses 48 to 52 would be fair to what I broadly call the defendant. That was


rejected. We know that there is no guarantee that the investigation will be fair to the man who is accused. Where might events carry us? Suppose that next year a man is alleged to have carried out an act of racial discrimination. An investigation might or might not be held. What we know is that if it is held he will have no right to cross-examine the witnesses, no right to legal representation, no right to appear—it seems a general consensus that he will have no right to appear. It might even be that the offence will not be worth investigating at all. Perhaps soon afterwards he will lose the job he was doing. In 10 years' time, however, his employer at the time when the act was committed might find himself banned under this law from membership of a professional body.

Mr. Lawrence: There is no requirement under subsection (2) that the person accused should know that accusation is being made against him and what that accusation is.

Mr. Ronald Bell: Perhaps I can help my hon. Friend the Member for Chingford (Mr. Tebbit). I am happy to do so. He has raised the question of the man not knowing. The Home Secretary, in his interesting but misleading speech, directed our attention to Clause 32(3), which says:
In proceedings brought under this Act against any person in respect of an act alleged to have been done by an employee of his it shall be a defence for that person to prove that he took such steps.
and so on. Of course, that is in proceedings brought under the Bill against any person. It has nothing to do with subsection (2), which is what we are dealing with, which has imputations on a man's character. In relation to what we are talking about on this amendment, the man is damaged by things, of which he did not know, done by an employee or agent.

Mr. Tebbit: I am grateful for the assistance I am getting from the lawyers. I have never had so much assistance from lawyers before, and it is free. That must be an almost unique experience. I am driven to the conclusion, however, that there is probably some evidence which would, as the Bill puts it, "tend to show" that the Home Secretary was not

being entirely honest with us. He was perhaps, as someone suggested, passing a fast ball now and again.
2.30 a.m.
The right hon. Gentleman tried to get out of it with three defences. The first was that of precedent, but I think I have dealt with my reasons for believing that that defence was pretty poor. Secondly, he had the defence that it applied only to cases in which there was a history of discrimination, and I have also dealt with that matter. But a third defence has been raised. It is that we should rely upon the sound, good sense, decency and balance of these professional bodies—it is implied that we are talking of professional bodies—which would be instructed under the Bill to consider these matters before they admitted somebody to membership.
I do not think that the Home Secretary can quite get away with that either, because there is an interesting aspect to this part of the Bill. The wording here is
Where an authority or body is required by law to satisfy itself as to his"—
that is, the applicant's—
good character before conferring on a person an authorisation or qualification which is needed for, or facilitates, his engagement in any profession or trade".
Let us turn our attention to the undoubted trade of driving a taxi. Let us consider the London taxi driver. Before one can become a London taxicab driver, one has to have a certificate or licence. One has to be a member of the club, whatever it is called. That certificate or licence is issued by the Metropolitan Police. Who is the authority over the Metropolitan Police? It is the Home Secretary, the very man who is not sure whether his legislation refers to an isolated act or to a history of such acts.

Dr. M. S. Miller: He is sure.

Mr. Tebbit: The hon. Member says that the Home Secretary is sure. What we have established is that, if he is sure, he is surely wrong. We can give him the benefit of the doubt by suggesting that he is in doubt.
We are not relying at the end of the day on the good sense of a professional body or on its bad sense. We are relying,


in at least one case, on the Home Secretary. What is the Home Secretary's understanding of how the legislation will be applied? What does he think would disqualify a man from driving a taxicab in London? Would it be that at some time in the past—perhaps if he was an owner of several cabs, as a good many cab drivers are—he employed a man who had indulged in some racial discrimination, or about whom there was a story that he had indulged in some racial discrimination, and that there was evidence some years earlier which tended to show this?
It is no good the Home Secretary trying to shuffle off the responsibility on to someone else. At the end of the day he will not get away with saying that this is a matter for the Royal College of Surgeons or a body such as that. In the case of the taxi driver, at the end of the day it is a matter for the Home Secretary. If I were a taxi driver and I had heard this debate this evening, I would not be very happy that the Home Secretary knew what his own legislation even meant.

Mr. Stanbrook: This is a very serious matter indeed. I do not propose to go into the philosophical aspects of the problem but would like to point out some practical reasons why we should look at the clause very closely indeed. It can and no doubt will be applied, if it is passed, so as to deprive a man of his livelihood.
Let us consider, for example, the meaning of the words "good character". Traditionally—and, indeed, in all other references to the words—what that means is simply that there are no convictions recorded against a person. Conversely, we say that bad character or character must be considered. Have there been any convictions recorded against him? In other words, when we talk of crime we mean offences of which the person has been convicted and which are recorded. In all recorded instances that I know of in statutes, where we speak of crime we mean that the offences which a man has committed and his record must be taken into consideration.
In this legislation, however, and in particular in subsection (2) the Government are going much further than that

because they are proposing sanctions on behaviour which have the effect of being sanctions of criminality—which are offences, with all the consequences that flow from that—without at the same time coming out in the open and saying that it will be a crime.
Racial discrimination, unlawful discrimination, is not a crime as such and therefore, in the ordinary standards of crime, is not something to be taken into account. But in subsection (2) unlawful discrimination has been elevated from the rather innocuous, nebulous civil concept to one which will have the effect of a crime, and it will have devastating effects upon any individual caught by it.
It is even worse than that, because at least a criminal before he is convicted, is entitled to the benefit of certain rules of law, such as that the case must be proved against him. There is the presumption that he is innocent until proved guilty. There are rules of evidence and the law of evidence. There is a procedure which is designed to give the man the fairest possible trial. All of us in this House know how that as the law develops there is great anxiety to ensure that it is the right of every defendant to have the fairest possible trial and that no new development should be unfavourable towards him.
Here, however, we have a dilution of that standard, because it is necessary only to produce evidence tending to show that a man has practised unlawful discrimination. In other words, only half a case is required, only some of the prosecution case and not all of it. Worse still—one never gets this in the case of a crime—the man might not be personally responsible in any way whatever, because the concept here of employees and agents fixing responsibility upon an individual comes straight from the civil law of master and servant, principal and agent.
Whereas the civil law accurately allows that connection, for the purposes of the law within the profession we are simply saying here that any evidence must be considered even if it comes from a person for whom the man is not responsible, even if it is something that only tends to show he is a certain type of person, even if it relates to only one instance and, worst of all, even if it were many years ago.

Mr. Bidwell: You would be wide open, you would.

Mr. Stanbrook: It is quite clear from the enthusiasm of Labour Members that in respect of this clause they have no interest in maintaining the rule of law, the presumption of innocence or that great distinction, in relation to crime in this country, of the necessity to prove it before any penal consequences arise. That is what is happening. The Home Secretary is directly responsible for this fudging of responsibility and for criminality being introduced under the guise of some civil concept. Yet this is the sort of criminality which, while not designated as such, has far weaker rules and far direr consequences for some people than any criminal law would have if dealt with in the proper way. The Home Secretary should consider this problem.
I am glad that the Home Secretary is here to listen to my speech, because he makes a practice of leaving the Chamber when I get up. That is a great shame, because I am sure he misses many useful points that I wish to make.
I had the good fortune to serve on the Committee which considered the Rehabilitation of Offenders Bill. That Bill was something I disapproved of.

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Meyer Galpern): Order. I think that the hon. Gentleman is getting a little confused. We are discussing the Race Relations Bill. He should stick to that.

Mr. Stanbrook: Mr. Stanbrook rose—

Mr. Ronald Bell: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. When you were not in the Chair, I think, the question of the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act and its consistency with this provision was raised and the Home Secretary expressed himself so much influenced by it that he would have to consider the interrelation of the two. I mention that because it is not perhaps immediately obvious.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: I am obliged. This is one of the difficulties of the takeover in the Chair. There are only two of us and there are 25 hon. Members, yet we must carry one. I accept that this is a difficulty, but it seemed out of order from what I had heard.

Mr. Stanbrook: Further to the point of order, if I may put it that way. If you will be patient with me, Mr. Deputy Speaker, I think that I shall be able to explain why it is important to consider that Act in relation to this clause.
The subsection is a retrograde step when we are discussing the treatment of offenders. There has been a trend for some time towards raising the burden of the guilt of the past from the backs of people who have incurred the censure of society. Equally, we have raised the standards of judgment and the standards for admission to certain societies. For example, where as the original Solicitors Act provided that the Law Society had to take into account the moral character and fitness of a person to be a solicitor, in the latest Solicitors Act a few years ago we dropped the words "moral character".

Mr. Victor Goodhew: Really!

Mr. Stanbrook: My hon. Friend got through—under the higher standard, I hasten to say.
But as long as the provision about moral character applied, the Law Society had to consider something besides convictions for criminal offences. The trend in that direction might be appropriate. In the same way, we no longer speak of conduct unbecoming to "officers and gentlemen". The argument is that if a man is fit to do the job we should not apply any distinctions to the standards he must reach. The Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1973 was originally a Private Member's Bill, but it was given great encouragement by the Government.
2.45 a.m.
Ultimately, what happens is that anyone who has been convicted and fined, provided he can stay out of trouble for five years—my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Runcorn (Mr. Carlisle) got his dates and figures wrong—is said to be rehabilitated. Anyone who serves a sentence of imprisonment of up to six months has to stay out of trouble for seven years and is then rehabilitated, and anyone who serves a sentence of imprisonment of up to two and a half years has to stay out of trouble for 10 years before he can be rehabilitated. Lots of people believe that this is humanitarian and in accordance with the spirit of the age. It is felt right that the burden of


guilt and punishment and the slur on a person's -character should be lifted and that he should be given a chance of living down his past.
It was said in that Act that anyone who published the fact of a conviction when it was spent—when the person concerned was rehabilitated—would be subject to penalties provided for in the legislation. It is now almost criminal to mention the fact that someone has committed an offence, provided that that person is rehabilitated. There again, we have followed the same sort of trend. What are we doing in this part of the Bill? The provision is a criminal provision. It does not apply the high standard of proof needed for a criminal offence and it is vague about what should happen. Worst of all, there is no time limit. It applies to anything, past or present. That could go back many years.
There could be a perfectly proper case of a solicitor in Brixton who perhaps discriminated in favour of a West Indian solicitor rather than a white-skinned Englishman because he thought that the West Indian would be better for dealing with his coloured clients. It might be said that that was a perfectly proper type of discrimination. But it is not allowed under the race relations legislation. The incident might have taken place years ago, but under the terms of the subsection it would have to be taken into consideration when that solicitor was being considered for any appointment. It is clear that the whole subsection is not just a nonsense. It is a dangerous nonsense in the way it is bound to be applied. There will clearly be a lot of trouble.
My hon. Friend the Member for Chingford (Mr. Tebbit) was being rather kind to the Home Secretary when he referred only to the fact that the Home Secretary had spoken of the history of discrimination. I thought I also heard the right hon. Gentleman talk of the body concerned having some sort of discretion as to whether it should take these things into account. That is not so at all. It is mandatory. There is no question but that it is obligatory upon any body to take these matters into account.
On the whole, I am glad that the subsection is restricted to bodies which are required by law to satisfy themselves as to good character. I am surprised, considering the happy-go-lucky way in

which these penal laws are enacted, with the connivance of the Government, that it has been so restricted and not extended to everyone who takes into account character before making appointments.

Mr. Tebbit: Taking up my hon. Friend's example of the black solicitor who might think it best to have a fellow black solicitor working for him and who refused to employ white solicitors, that would presumably mean that a charge of discrimination could be brought against him. If every time a white solicitor came and asked him for a job the black solicitor assaulted him, he would be prosecuted. After a while the conviction would become spent and it would not be possible to refer to the fact that it had happened.

Mr. Stanbrook: That is true. It shows how crazy the whole thing is.
If the Home Secretary is not impressed by my arguments, I suggest one other aspect—the provision in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights condemning the punishment of a man for doing something which was not a crime when he did it. That is a fundamental concept which we all accept, as we glibly accept so much of that declaration. The subsection offends against that concept because it goes back so far. It will go back far beyond any time when the Bill could come into operation. Clause 12 may provide a defence, but only for proceedings under the Act.
The Home Secretary dislikes retrospective legislation and he also dislikes any action which has the effect of lifting a previous immunity, with the result that there is now an amnesty for certain classes of illegal immigrants. The Home Secretary did that at his own discretion. In order not to introduce retrospective legislation and not to penalise someone who imagines himself to be free of penalties, he lifted the penalties. And yet here he is proposing a new section of the law whereby a man will never be free of possible penalties as a result of something he did which was not a crime, which was not intended as a crime and which need not be proved. The Home Secretary should withdraw the provision.

Dr. M. S. Miller: In debating a subject such as this, it is somewhat distasteful to have the kind of knockabout, facile, rumbustious arguments that we


have had from the hon. Member for Chingford (Mr. Tebbit). The subject is extremely serious, and the Bill is meant to be of benefit to all sections of the community who have been discriminated against in the past. I find it reprehensible to say the least that hon. Members opposite should come here and make such facile, tortuous and fanciful interruptions. Their contributions have ranged from the knock-about by the hon. Member for Chingford to the trip into the past by the hon. and learned Member for Beaconsfield (Mr. Bell).
In a pseudo-scientific way, the hon. and learned Member began to tell us about Darwin and his theories and even skirted the dangerous ground of Hitler, who, he indicated, had very interesting theories.

Mr. Ronald Bell: I said nothing of the kind. I did not intervene in the speech by the hon. Member for Penistone (Mr. Mendelson) because I thought it wise not to do so. I said that I understand the emotions and strong feelings that a number of people hold on the subject. I said that I believed Hitler was to blame for that. That was my only reference to him, and I do not see why I should have that gentleman's opinions attributed to me.

Dr. Miller: I accept that, but the fact that it was mentioned is enough to arouse considerable feelings in many people outside the House. The hon. and learned Gentleman cannot get away with that quite so easily. He talked about the survival of the fittest, which is something Hitler talked about—[HON. MEMBERS: "Darwin did it first."]—and indicated that it was a theory which had to be accepted in spite of the stark problems which it raised.

Mr. Ronald Bell: If the hon. Gentleman reads in Hansard what I said, he will realise that he is being unjust.

Dr. Miller: I should accept that if I thought that the hon. and learned Gentleman was trying to make a contribution to race relations, but he deliberately makes matters worse by what he says. I cannot accept the way in which he tries to wriggle out of the legalese which he talks.
I find no great difficulty in accepting the interpretation given by my right hon.

Friend the Home Secretary of the provision in subsection (2) that the authority shall
have regard to any evidence".
That is clear enough. It means that the authority takes the evidence into account. It imposes no other obligation on the authority.
The hon. Member for Chingford made a great deal of play with the word "practise" in relation to unlawful discrimination. If I, as a medical practitioner, practise medicine, it does not mean that I have done it only once. It means that I have a history of practising my profession, that I have been doing it for quite a long time.

Mr. Tebbit: The hon. Gentleman has not read the Bill. "Practise" in this sense is defined and relates to an isolated act. The hon. Gentleman had better describe himself as a medical historian, because I referred to the phrase the Home Secretary used, which was "the history of discrimination". The hon. Gentleman had better deal with the word "history".

3.0 a.m.

Mr. Lawson: I intervene only briefly, because I am sure that the House is anxious to continue the good progress we have made so far.
The House is indebted to the hon. Member for Penistone (Mr. Mendelson) for revealing in his intervention the thinking behind the Bill, which shows a real gulf between the two sides of the House.

Mr. Powell: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Is it not contrary to the rules of order for an hon. Member to read a newspaper, unless he is proposing to take part in the debate and is consulting it for that purpose?

Mr. Deputy Speaker: I must ask the hon. Member for Tottenham (Mr. Atkinson) to cease reading his newspaper. My attention has been drawn to the fact that he is reading it, and he is not permitted to do so. The reading of a newspaper in the Chamber is not permitted.

Mr. Bidwell: It is not a newspaper.

Mr. Norman Atkinson: I am finding it extremely instructive, Mr. Deputy Speaker.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: It is a newspaper, and it is against the rules of the House for newspapers to be read.

Mr. Atkinson: Under which section, Mr. Deputy Speaker?

Mr. Deputy Speaker: The section will be found.

Mr. Atkinson: If I may say so, Mr. Deputy Speaker—

Mr. Deputy Speaker: I do not want to hear any more. The section in "Erskine May" will be found.

Mr. Bidwell: It is the journal of the Transport and General Workers' Union.

Mr. Atkinson: As my hon. Friend says, it is the journal of the Transport and General Workers' Union. It contains some important material connected with the debate.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: We shall see what "Erskine May" provides.

Mr. Bidwell: It is called the Record.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: I have said that we shall see what "Erskine May" provides.

Mr. Bidwell: I am sponsored by the Transport and General Workers' Union, Mr. Deputy Speaker. That information is contained in the declaration of Members' interests.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: At page 434, "Erskine May" states:
Members are not to read books, newspapers or letters in their places".

Mrs. Renée Short: They often do that.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: It continues:
although it is still irregular to read newspapers, any books or letters may be referred to by Members preparing to speak, but ought not to be read for amusement or for business unconnected with the debate.
I ask the hon. Member to observe the Standing Order.

Mr. Atkinson: I understand the purpose of the Standing Order, Mr. Deputy Speaker, but allow me to read from the journal. An article states:
With the TUC condemning Enoch Powell's most recent inflammatory statements in the House of Commons, and the Labour Party nationally deciding to launch a campaign against racialism"—

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. My ruling is that the hon. Gentleman is in breach of the Standing Order. I ask him not to read the newspaper in the course of the debate in the Chamber.

Mr. Bidwell: It is a magazine.

Mr. Gow: Further to the point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Did I understand you to say that it was a Standing Order of the House?

Mr. Deputy Speaker: I am sorry, it is not a Standing Order. I have quoted from page 434 of "Erskine May". Mr. Lawson.

Mr. Lawson: I am delighted to see you exercise your authority in that decisive manner, Mr. Deputy Speaker.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I say for the benefit of the hon. Member for Blaby (Mr. Lawson) that I know that the reading of the paper would distract him from his contribution. Mr. Lawson.

Mr. Lawson: I am even more grateful to you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, for the consideration you have shown me.
I was saying that we owe the hon. Member for Penistone a considerable debt for having shown the thinking that lies behind the clause and, indeed, the Bill. He sounded—this was no coincidence or accident—the only note of naked intolerance that has been heard in the Chamber tonight. The hon. Gentleman accused those of my hon. Friends who have been speaking in this part of the debate—he did so on a number of occasions—of being racialists. I am sure that the Home Secretary does not feel that anybody who speaks against the Bill is a racialist. Therefore, I hope that he will take the opportunity to disown himself from that section of his hon. Friends. They certainly add nothing of merit to these proceedings.

Mr. Bidwell: The hon. Gentleman must be aware that, although he personally may not favour racial discrimination, there are many of his Opposition colleagues who are with him tonight who favour racial discrimination.

Mr. Lawson: I have heard nothing tonight to support that contention.
The hon. Member for Penistone drew attention to the discrepancy between the


relatively cursory examination of the Sex Discrimination Bill and the rather more detailed scrutiny of this Bill. I think that was a fair point, but the way in which he dealt with his argument was somewhat puzzling. He became confused between that distinguished eighteenth-century philosopher, Jean Jacques Rousseau—who, incidentally, invented the social contract, a phrase borrowed but so often distorted in its use by the Labour Party—and that third-rate Marxist existentialist, Jean-Paul Sartre. That did not help the course of our deliberations. One of the dicta of Sartre was that hell is other people. That may be what the Home Secretary is thinking tonight. Indeed, it may be what some of us think when confronted with the hon. Member for Penistone.
The dictum to which the hon. Gentleman alluded was a different one. Sartre said that to attack somebody on the grounds of race was particularly wicked because, unlike political affiliation, it could not be changed. But Clause 12 has nothing to do with attacking anybody at all.

Mr. Bidwell: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. The proceedings this morning have been somewhat farcical. Will you call the attention of Mr. Speaker to the fact that this is the Report stage of the Bill, in which Opposition Members have been called to order because they have been roaming all over the show? The Committee stage of the Bill sat for many weeks on Tuesday and Thursday mornings, but little reference has been made to those discussions. Indeed, this debate has been a complete farce. There have been no references to the Hansard report of proceedings in Committee, and most of the participants in today's debates have paid no regard whatever to the work of their colleagues in Committee on the Bill. Will you please call Mr. Speaker's attention to the farcical nature of these proceedings?

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. Do not let us play around with points of order. We have enough amendments to consider without going into points of order. I remind the hon. Member that Mr. Speaker is the person responsible for the selection of the amendments now under discussion, and there are a number that

still remain to be discussed. It is within the ambit of hon. Members to discuss the amendments that have been selected. As long as their remarks are relevant, they are strictly in order. It may be an uncomfortable and inconvenient way to go on at this late hour, but there has been no breach of Standing Orders or of the practice of the House. The hon. Member for Blaby (Mr. Lawson) said that he wanted to deal with the subsection that is under consideration. He appreciates how narrow is the subject covered by the amendment, and I am sure he will respect that fact.

Mr. Lawson: I readily concede that, although I am applying myself to Clause 12, I am doing so in a rather wide fashion, because I am addressing myself directly to the points raised by the hon. Member for Penistone. If he can make those points, I must be able to reply to them, otherwise that would be an act of discrimination, Mr. Deputy Speaker, and you would not want that, least of all on this Bill.
The hon. Member drew attention to the distinction in the equivalent clause of the Sex Discrimination Act. He quoted Jean-Paul Sartre, who said that to attack someone on grounds of race was wrong because, unlike political affiliation or religion, race cannot be changed. But in this Bill race embraces nationality, and nationality embraces citizenship. It is relatively easy to change one's citizenship, and relatively hard to change one's sex.
The hon. Member for Penistone should have said—and he would have been right—that race is perhaps a more explosive subject than sex. It is certainly more uncomfortable.

Mr. Gow: Would my hon. Friend develop that distinction?

Mr. Deputy Speaker: I suggest that both hon. Members retire and have a private conversation outside.

Mr. Lawson: I prefer to address my remarks to you, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Race is a difficult and uncomfortable subject, and this is one of the reasons why we do not accept the Home Secretary's view that because a precedent has been set in the Sex Discrimination Act we must accept this willy-nilly. The


Home Secretary speaks as if the precedent was an ancient and hallowed one, stretching back to Magna Carta, but it is of relatively recent origin. We were a bit slow in seeing the implications of the precedent, but we are getting around to it now. The courts and the people will see the problems involved later on.
3.15 a.m.
The difference between the two sides of the House is this. We question, first of all, whether legislation is the appropriate way to deal with a subject such as race relations or racial discrimination.
It is interesting that Labour Members are quick to say that it is wrong to legislate on industrial relations, which is an important subject, because we all want good industrial relations. We ask, therefore, whether legislation is appropriate on race relations and, secondly, even if it is, whether this legislation is right for that purpose. For the hon. Members for Penistone and for East Kilbride (Dr. Miller), that consideration does not enter into their thinking. For them the end justifies the means. They could not care two hoots about the wording of the Bill. They say only that it is against discrimination and that therefore they support it, regardless of the wording, the side effects or anything else. We are addressing ourselves to the Bill. The Home Secretary has sought to do so as well. But his hon. Friends have at no time done so. This is an infallible way of getting bad legislation on the statute book.
I come now to the amendment—

Mrs. Renée Short: About time too.

Mr. Lawson: I am glad that the hon. Lady is following my speech with such interest. There are two points I should like to put to the Home Secretary. Under subsection (2), regard must be had to evidence tending to show whether a suspected person, or any of his employees or agents, past or present, has practised unlawful discrimination. An employer may have made certain that while in his employment his employees did not practise unlawful discrimination. But what happens when the employees subsequently leave that employment and then practise unlawful discrimination? They practise it as former employees, and the employer

will therefore be held to be guilty for something that happened long after he had any control over those employees or agents. That seems wholly contrary to natural justice. The point could be met by a relatively small amendment, but that amendment has not been forthcoming from the Government, even at this late stage. That is an alarming state of affairs.
My hon. Friend the Member for Chingford (Mr. Tebbit) spoke about the possibility of the authority or body concerned—and the Home Secretary seemed to imply that it need not be just a professional body—being the Home Secretary himself or the Home Office. I was concerned about immigration and naturalisation. It seems perfectly conceivable that under subsection (2) the authority or body may be the Home Office. It has to satisfy itself that a person is of good character before it grants him naturalisation. It will not grant it to a notoriously bad character.
According to the Bill, authorisation or qualification also includes
recognition, registration, enrolment, approval and certification".
Naturalisation certainly involves approval, and British nationality may be gained by registration. This takes us back to the earlier amendment about what is needed and what facilitates. British nationality can be a qualification which is needed for certain employments. For example, one has to be a British national if one wishes to work in the security services.
The Home Secretary may be required, before granting anybody British nationality by naturalisation, to satisfy himself that at no time in the past has that person ever practised a single act of unlawful discrimination—we have established that it does not have to be a long history—In the carrying out of or in connection with his business and trade and that no former employee or agent of that person has ever practised such an act. Is the Home Secretary satisfied that this interpretation is possible? I am not a lawyer, but it seems to be a possibility. If it is, does the right hon. Gentleman think it right, proper or workable?
Workability and enforceability lie at the heart of a great deal of the Bill. One of our reasons for doubt, which is


shared by many Labour Members in regard to industrial relations, is that such legislation, even if it were right—and I do not believe that it is right in any sense —is unenforceable. Passing such legislation brings the law into contempt and disrepute.

Mr. Mayhew: Anybody who read Clause 12(2) would not have been surprised at the length of the debate on the amendment. I was stunned to hear the hon. Member for Ealing, Southall (Mr. Bidwell) claim that tonight's debate was irrelevant to what was discussed in Committee on this clause. At the sixth sitting of the Committee, I said that qualifying bodies
will be charged with a specific duty of investigating any evidence relating to a specific field of conduct which is here singled out. It is a field of conduct of which the Government today disapprove and of which Parliament may well disapprove, but it will oblige a body caught by this subsection to deem evidence of such conduct as evidence of bad character. It therefore follows that such evidence is to be taken into consideration and, if found to be of sufficient weight, it shall be deemed sufficient to deprive a candidate of a right to earn his living in the way he wishes. It shuts him out from the calling, profession or trade which is controlled by the qualifying body in question. A disqualification which leads somebody to be deprived of his right to earn his living is a very serious matter. Parliament has always regarded it, and so have the courts."— [Official Report, Standing Committee A, 13th May, 1976; c. 271–72.]
I quote my own speech to show that this subject was put at the forefront of the debate on this clause in Committee.
Tonight's debate has included two speeches from the Home Secretary—one wholly disappointing and the other fairly disapponting. The first was wholly disappointing because it failed to pay regard to any of the points which I set out in justifying our grounds for the amendment. First and foremost among those was that the clause relates to qualifying bodies which have a duty imposed upon them by law to satisfy themselves that candidates are of good character.
As I have tried to indicate, there can be only one point in subsection (2). That is to recognise that no conceivable interpretation of the words "good character" could lead to an inquiry into whether a candidate had been guilty through his employee or agent in the past of racial discrimination. The Home Secretary said

that it was necessary that the clause should say this. However, as it can only be necessary that the clause should say this for qualified, distinguished bodies, it can only be necessary that the clause should stipulate this if those distinguished bodies would not take account of it if left to themselves.
Why should we suppose that qualifying bodies vested with this jurisdiction either by practice or by Act of Parliament should neglect to take any account of racial discrimination if they thought that it was capable of amounting to evidence of bad character? It is only because the Government wish to change what in ordinary English everyone understands by the expression "good character" or "bad character" that the clause is necessary. When the Home Secretary said that it was necessary that the clause should say this, he was guilty of a circular argument. The only reason why it is necessary for the clause to say it is that the Government want it said.
The Home Secretary then said that there were precedents. I realised at once that I ought to have said what has become second nature, when discussing the Bill, for everyone who served on the Standing Committee: that no doubt the provision complained of is to be found in the Sex Discrimination Act. That is the progenitor, as the right hon. Member for Down, South (Mr. Powell) has often pointed out, of practically everything in the Bill. That almost goes without saying. Time and again we have said that the fact that it is to be found in one Act is no reason for reproducing it in another.
However, the Home Secretary seemed to take the view that the fact that a similar, though far from identical, provision is to be found in the Consumer Credit Act 1974 in some way shot the bottom out of my argument. I cannot see that it does that. I was not conscious of knives being planted in my back by the right hon. Member for Down, South. I dare say that if I had half of the experience of the Home Secretary, or by the time that I have had that experience, I should be more sensitive about the area between my shoulders. But it does not worry me in the slightest, speaking from the Dispatch Box, to learn that a Tory Government were responsible for a similar section in the Consumer Credit Act


1974—save to engender in my breast feelings of mild regret.
However, as the Home Secretary seems to think that this is a bull point, I would draw attention to quite marked distinctions or differences in that Act. After all, the duty to which the Home Secretary drew attention in Section 25 is a duty imposed upon the Director General of Fair Trading. He is a gentleman who was created by that Act, created by the Government for the purpose, as the very first section says, of administering the licensing system set up by that Act. That is a far cry from, for example, the Royal College of Surgeons, the Bar Council or any other of the great professional bodies which over many centuries have experience in dealing with the affairs of their profession.
That was an Act the purpose of which was to set up a system of licensing, for which purpose it created and appointed the Director General of Fair Trading. Certain duties were imposed upon him, on which the Home Secretary relied. But the Director General is required to be satisfied that a candidate is a fit person to engage in activities covered by the licence. It is true that that provision, on which the Home Secreetary relies, goes further in that section and the Director General has to take account of the fact that such a person has practised discrimination on grounds of sex, colour and so on in connection with the carrying on of a business. That is a much narrower provision than the one with which we are concerned. There is no reference there to bad character, and it is bad character that is the key to the clause. Time and again hon. Members have said that a condidate has no means of meeting a case, answering an allegation or coping with an allegation that the evidence tends to show that he or his employee or agent in the past was guilty of discrimination.
3.30 a.m.
What happens if a qualifying body says that it is specifically set out in an Act of Parliament that it must have regard to any "evidence tending to show", and it decides tht there is evidence of bad character? A candidate who has passed examinations and is perfectly acceptable in every other way is denied the opportunity to earn his living, because it is known to all and sundry thereafter that he has been

found to be of bad character. That is the injustice of it.
When we see the extent to which vicarious liability is extended, when we see the inability of the wretched individual to do anything to meet the evidence which tends to show that he was guilty by virtue of something which his agent did 15 years ago, we recognise the evil which has led to the debate taking the length of time that it has.
My hon. Friend the Member for Eastbourne (Mr. Gow) drew attention to a further consequence of the drafting of the clause. He said that the qualifying bodies have a duty to satisfy themselves that a candidate is of good character. He asked whether that meant that they had a duty to seek out evidence of discrimination in the past and satisfy themselves that none exists. If so, that imposes a new facet upon the obligations that these bodies have had to discharge in the past. If that is not a true interpretation of the subsection, the obscurity of its drafting is reason enough for its deletion.
My hon. Friend the Member for Blaby (Mr. Lawson) said that the subsection might affect the Home Office in its jurisdiction on naturalisation. If that is right, and I see no reason why not—the Home Secretary declined when invited to throw light on the problem—that reinforces my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Runcorn (Mr. Carlisle) in his reference to the purpose of the Bill being to impose a separate and further penalty upon someone who has already in all probability suffered a penalty for an act of racial discrimination at some time in the past.
It is a great disappointment that the Home Secretary did not deal with those points in the course of his two contributions. In his second speech—the one which was only fairly disappointing—he said, without giving any commitment, that he would consider whether the subsection was in conflict with the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act. I hope that my right hon. and hon. Friends will not be unduly swayed by that non-commitment.
It is inconceivable that that the draftsmen could have been responsible for the 1974 Act, the 1975 Act and the Bill in ignorance or forgetfulness of the provisions of the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act. Even if that is proved to be the case, it is only part of the argument we


bring against the clause. We are concerned primarily not with whether there is consistency between the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act and the provisions of the subsection but that the Government are seeking to change the ordinary meaning of "good character", which was defined 100 years ago as being the estimation in which a man was held by those acquainted with him. The Government are turning that into the estimation in which a man ought to be held, according to the Government's books, by those who are acquainted with him. That is the evil of the Bill.

Division No. 226.]
AYES
[3.36 a.m.


Alison, Michael
Lane, David
Stokes, John


Atkins, Rt Hon H. (Spelthorne)
Lawrence, Ivan
Tebbit, Norman


Bell, Ronald
Lawson, Nigel
Wall, Patrick


Bennett, Sir Frederic (Torbay)
Lester, Jim (Beeston)
Whitelaw, Rt Hon William


Boscawen, Hon Robert
Mayhew, Patrick
Winterton, Nicholas


Budgen, Nick
Page, John (Harrow West)



Fraser, Rt Hon H. (Stafford &amp; St)
Parkinson, Cecil
TELLERS FOR THE AYES:


Goodhew, Victor
Powell, Rt Hon J. Enoch
Mr Spencer Le Marchant and


Gow, Ian (Eastbourne)
Silvester, Fred
Mr W. Benyon


Hall-Davis, A. G. F.
Stanbrook, Ivor





NOES


Anderson, Donald
Harrison, Walter (Wakefield)
Robinson, Geoffrey


Atkinson, Norman
Hayman, Mrs Helene
Roderick, Caerwyn


Bean, R. E.
Hooley, Frank
Rodgers, William (Stockton)


Bidwell, Sydney
Jenkins, Rt Hon Roy (Stechford)
Rooker, J. W.


Blenkinsop, Arthur
John, Brynmor
Ross, Stephen (Isle of Wight)


Booth, Rt Hon Albert
Johnson, James (Hull West)
Short, Mrs Renée (Wolv NE)


Callaghan, Jim (Middleton &amp; P)
Judd, Frank
Silkin, Rt Hon S. C. (Dulwich)


Cocks, Michael (Bristol S)
Kerr, Russell
Skinner, Dennis


Coleman, Donald
Latham, Arthur (Paddington)
Snape, Peter


Cook, Robin F. (Edin C)
Lestor, Miss Joan (Eton &amp; Slough)
Spearing, Nigel


Corbett, Robin
Lipton, Marcus
Stoddart, David


Cox, Thomas (Tooting)
Lyons, Edward (Bradford W)
Summerskill, Hon Dr Shirley


Crowther, Stan (Rotherham)
McElhone, Frank
Thomas, Ron (Bristol NW)


Cryer, Bob
MacFarquhar, Roderick
Tinn, James


Davidson, Arthur
Mackenzie, Gregor
Tomlinson, John


Davis, Clinton (Hackney C)
Madden, Max
Walker, Harold (Doncaster)


Dormand, J. D.
Marshall, Jim (Leicester S)
Walker, Terry (Kingswood)


Eadie, Alex
Mendelson, John
Watkinson, John


Ellis, John (Brigg &amp; Scun)
Miller, Dr M. S. (E Kilbride)
White, Frank R. (Bury)


Faulds, Andrew
Miller, Mrs Millie (Ilford N)
Willey, Rt Hon Frederick


Flannery, Martin
Morris, Alfred (Wythenshawe)
Wise, Mrs Audrey


Foot, Rt Hon Michael
Newens, Stanley
Wrigglesworth, Ian


Freud, Clement
O'Halloran, Michael
Young, David (Bolton E)


George, Bruce
Palmer, Arthur



Graham, Ted
Pavitt, Laurie
TELLERS FOR THE NOS:


Grant, John (Islington C)
Pendry, Tom
Mr Alf Bates and


Grocott, Bruce
Radice, Giles
Mr A. W. Stallard


Hamilton, James (Bothwell)
Rees, Rt Hon Merlyn (Leeds S)

Question accordingly negatived.

3.45 a.m.

Mr. Ronald Bell: I beg to move, That further consideration of the Bill, as amended, be now adjourned.
I move this motion in order that we may discover the intentions of the Government. We have had a satisfactory evening and progress has been thorough and steady. The debate has been well balanced and I think we all feel that good progress has been made. We on this side of the House are fresh, but there

My right hon. and hon. Friends will show by voting what they think about the Bill, nothwithstanding the Home Secretary's intervention. If we carry the amendment to a vote, the Home Secretary should not be deterred from re-examining the Bill. By carrying it to a vote we shall be drawing attention in the only way open to an Opposition to a provision which we regard as wholly wrong.

Question put, That the amendment be made:—

The House divided: Ayes 25, Noes 79.

has been a feeling that hon. Members on the Government side are getting jaded. It is with them in mind that I move the motion to give the Home Secretary an opportunity of saying what his intentions are.

There are still 14 debates to come. The next one is, of course, an important subject, but after that comes an even more important subject—Amendment No. 7—which raises the whole question of the application of the Bill to clubs. Although I know that my hon. Friends


will wish to say a great deal, Labour Members may wish to take a more constructive part than they have done hitherto and it would be desirable for the House that as many hon. Members as possible should express their opinion on the two important amendments that will be taken together—[Interruption.] I do not think hon. Gentlemen opposite in any way inspire the proceedings by their interruptions. They really cannot think that I would stop because of them.

The eighteenth debate in our series, the twelfth from now, will be raising the very important question of the provisions of the Bill relating to freedom of speech. That debate will take place on Clause 70. It will raise great issues of constitutional principle upon which all hon. Members present will wish to express their opinion. There is no doubt about that. I think it would be undesirable if that debate were to commence at about 11 o'clock when the Government are having to consider whether to lose Friday's business. We might be psychologically distracted and we may not give the best that is in us to debate that vital matter.

At the present rate of progress, we should not reach that debate on freedom of speech until Saturday. I do not think that that would be desirable, although I am perfectly happy to sit here until Saturday or Sunday.

Mr. Clement Freud: Do not forget me.

Mr. Bell: After all that, the hon. Member for Isle of Ely (Mr. Freud) wishes to address us all on the Adjournment. He, too, would welcome news from the Home Secretary. I shall therefore give the right hon. Gentleman the opportunity of telling us what is in his mind about the Bill.

Mr. Roy Jenkins: I can immediately tell the House my intentions in regard to the motion of the hon. and learned Member for Beaconsfield (Mr. Bell). It is to ask the House to reject it. I cannot agree with him that we have made good progress or that most of those who have been speaking are anxious to subject the Bill to constructive scrutiny. They seek to prevent it from going through, and we are determined to get it through. I understand also that it is the view of the Opposition Front Bench that,

although they have certain criticisms of the Bill, they also wish to see it go through. But we are not making progress in that direction.
We spent three and three-quarter hours on the last amendment. I heard what I thought was a serious argument deployed by the hon. and learned Member for Runcorn (Mr. Carlisle) about two and three-quarter hours ago, to which I responded immediately by saying that I would consider it. Clearly, the hon. and learned Member took the view that none of his hon. Friends who would speak after him would have anything constructtive to say, and he left the Chamber immediately after having made the one constructive point that I have heard in the debate.
I cannot accept the view of the hon. and learned Member for Beaconsfield of the progress made. I never want to stay later than one has to. Important Bills have to be subjected to proper scrutiny, but when hon. Members are trying to hold up a Bill for the sake of holding it up and not for the sake of scrutinising or improving it the Government have to go on.

Mr. Whitelaw: If the Home Secretary has decided that he wishes to go on with the Bill, we are ready to do so. I accept that some of my hon. Friends do not wish the Bill to go through at all. That is not my position. However, all my right hon. and hon. Friends on the Front Bench and all those on the Back Benches who take the same view as I do wish to put some strong points on the matters still to come, like the clubs and free speech—

Mr. Atkinson: Disown "Ding-Dong" then.

Mr. Whitelaw: I have sat here without saying a word—a very surprising thing for me at any time—for three or four hours, and I am entitled to say a word now. I intend to say it and I hope that the hon. Gentleman will allow me to do so.
What I resent is the argument that there is something wrong with those who wish to pursue their arguments against the Bill. I do not agree with all the points they are making, but I stand up for their absolute right to make them. Everyone


in the Chamber has an absolute right to put his point of view, whether or not others agree with it.
Some of the things that have been said to my hon. Friends following propositions that they have put forward are unfair, and unreasonable. I say that particularly to the hon. Member for Penistone (Mr. Mendelson). They are extremely unfair and quite wrong. The right thing to do, if the Home Secretary wishes to carry on with the Bill is for us to argue the points on the amendments that will come forward. That we are prepared to do.

Mr. Nicholas Winterton: I wish to support the motion moved by my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Beaconsfield (Mr. Bell). It is unreasonable for the Home Secretary to have said in his reply that we have not been making progress. We have been making progress. The quality of the debate on the whole has been high. If any destructive comment has been made, it has come from the Government Benches. We have been endeavouring to draw to the Government's attention some of the evil and pernicious consequences of this legislation.
There are many important debates still to come. My right hon. Friend the Member for Penrith and The Border (Mr. Whitelaw) has clearly indicated that the debate which will, perhaps, take place in an hour or two relating to clubs is of tremendous importance to all hon. Members. Is it right that such an important debate should take place at 3 o'clock, 4 o'clock or 5 o'clock in the morning? I do not think so. I do not think that it improves the image of this House in the eyes of the people of the country.
We are here representing the interests of the people and of our country. The attitude of the Government is not at all helpful. We shall be coming later to the amendment relating to free speech. It would seem, from what some Labour Members have said earlier, that they want to deny free speech to Opposition Members. We have responsibilities to our constituents and nationally. It is only right that we should be putting forward our arguments. There are consequences to this legislation of which I do not believe the Government are aware. The Bill inevitably further restricts the free-

dam of the individual and, as a result, will diminish respect for the rule of law. If that is what the Home Secretary and the Labour Party are seeking to do, it is not what I want.
I will readily declare, for the benefit of the hon. Member for Penistone (Mr. Mendelson), that I am one of those who does not wish to see this legislation reach the statute book. I would like to see all race relations legislation removed from the statute book. Race relations can be improved only by education and evolution. [Interruption.] It cannot be improved by Government interference and legislation.

Mr. Martin Flannery: You are a racist.

Mr. Winterton: This is an important debate and I do not believe that we should continue it into the early hours of the morning. There is no doubt that if the Government continue they will lose tomorrow's business. I am prepared to sit here all night to argue the important issues that are of the utmost importance not only to Parliament and its image but to the people of the country. I therefore make a plea to the Home Secretary—who is respected by both sides of the House and by people outside—to think again about the progress we have made. Some of the hold-ups have occurred because of interventions from his own side, and that has stimulated reaction from this side. I fully support my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Beaconsfield and I hope that others of my hon. Friends will do the same.

4.0 a.m.

Mr. John Page: I do not want to break the historically friendly relations between myself and my Member of Parliament, my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Beaconsfield (Mr. Bell), but I disagree with his motion. The debate should go on. I say that for a number of reasons. The first is that I see so many of the important Bills before the House in the shadow of the guillotine. If we continue the debate throughout tonight and tomorrow, we shall give the country an opportunity of hearing the arguments which have been put so persuasively and sensibly by my hon. Friends and which have been listened to so courteously by the Home Secretary—in contrast to our previous debate.
Secondly, I am making two speeches tonight in my constituency, where race relations and immigration are regarded as important. I shall be careful not to emulate the hon. Member for Tottenham (Mr. Atkinson), but a most interesting letter from the Vicar of Neasden appeared in last Friday's issue of the well-read Harrow Observer and Gazette. I feel it is significant and important that we should engage in a discussion on race relations because—

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I do not think that what the vicar has been saying is relevant to the motion before the House. We are concerned with the motion that further consideration should be adjourned.

Mr. Page: If I could read just one paragraph of the vicar's letter, its relevance would become apparent. But shall not do that but will keep it until Third Reading, because it criticises the Race Relations Board. I hope that the motion will not be passed and that there will be continuing full discussion. A number of hon. Members opposite have only just entered the Chamber for the procedural motion—

Mr. Russell Kerr: They came to hear the speech of the hon. Member for Harrow, West (Mr. Page).

Mr. Page: I am grateful for that confirmation, but it would have done the hon. Member for Feltham and Heston (Mr. Kerr) more good to have heard my earlier speech because it was more relevant to this important debate. The hon. Member for Penistone (Mr. Mendelson) gave the dynamic vue générale, the modern philosophy of the Tribune approach to some matters.
I hope that Labour Members will remain here for the rest of the debate and will take part. It is a pity that the running on their side of the House is left entirely to the Front Bench and a handful of hon. Members whose views we already know.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Mr. Tebbit.

Mr. Russell Kerr: The vicar of Ching-ford.

Mr. Tebbit: It is gratifying that Labour Members recognise true virtue, and even

perhaps a hint of saintliness. Perhaps their welcome marks a little jollity, which usually happens when people are somewhat over-tired. Like little children, they become a little fractious and over-excited. Therefore, perhaps we should be wise to do as my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Beaconsfield (Mr. Bell) has suggested, take a break and return to the discussion later.
In the debate on the proposal that we should leave out Clause 12(2), we had no answer from Ministers to the points we raised. Once the Home Secretary had referred to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act he seemed to think that he need reply to no more of the points made. Admittedly he would have had difficulty in speaking for a third time. Perhaps it would have been better if he had asked the Under-Secretary to reply to that debate. A number of interesting points had emerged, casting some doubt upon the drafting of the Bill, some of them technical matters, let alone matters of policy. If Ministers cannot be persuaded to answer a debate, it may be better that we should all go home until they are refreshed, and continue on Monday or Tuesday.
An even more powerful reason for ending the debate now can be seen if we look around the House. A few minutes ago I saw lurking behind your Chair, Mr. Deputy Speaker, the Government Chief Whip. The difficulties he faces are such that we should all consider how best we can help him. The Home Secretary has said that he does not like the nature of these debates and that it is rather impertinent of hon. Members to question the Bill at any length. Earlier he made a great case that the Bill must be right because it reproduced the provisions of the Sex Discrimination Act, which were not debated at any great length. We have a little difficulty there which we might solve by having a series of debates of reasonable length. Unfortunately, such are the problems of debating late at night or early in the morning that it is difficult for hon Members to make their points as concisely as they otherwise would.
At this time of night the Government, who started off with a near-record attendance for a recent late-night sitting with 97 of their Members present, and therefore only three short of the number required—

Mr. Flannery: Where are the Conserative Members?

Mr. Tebbit: The hon. Gentleman must not except the Opposition to be here to carry procedural motions for the Government to get their business. Earlier on, they were only three short of having enough Members present to support a closure. At that stage, given the limits of tolerance that have built up and the way in which votes are conducted by the Government, they might even have managed to get 100 Members through the Government Lobby although only 97 were present. We must not be too prissy about such things these days. However, there has unfortunately been a progressive falling away of Labour Members. There were only 79 in the House for the last Division, 21 short of supporting a closure.
If we all knew that even at this pretty late hour the Government had enough of their supporters present to move a closure, it is possible that everyone's mind might be concentrated by the thought that if speeches were over-prolonged we could cut out some of our hon. Friends. That might encourage us to see how concisely we could put our arguments, even at the risk of Ministers not quite getting the points we were making. I say that because they have been a little—

Mr. Ronald Bell: Thick?

Mr. Tebbit: "Thick" was the word that came to mind, but probably that is because I am not legally trained.

Mr. Ronald Bell: That is the better word.

Mr. Tebbit: As my hon. and learned Friend says, it is probably the better word.
Until the Government can get enough of their supporters here to move a closure or to move the debate along, and as the Home Secretary wishes to have his Bill without undue debate, it would be kinder to the Government, and especially the Government Chief Whip, if we took a break from now until however long it might be before they can get enough supporters to enable them to get through their business rather more expeditiously.
We have to consider the health of the occupants of the Chair under these cir-

cumstances. As you have said, Mr. Deputy Speaker, it was rather unfair that those to whom you referred as the 25 of us should pit ourselves against the two occupants of the Chair. There are now many more of us in the Chamber—perhaps about 75. That is clearly three times as bad for the Chair. If we are to give these matters proper consideration and care, and at the same time have regard for the health of those who occupy the Chair—it is a difficult and onerous task, especially at a moment like this—there is good reason for our accepting the proposition of my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Beaconsfield, thereby allowing you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, and your co-occupant of the Chair to have a break from your onerous duties.
Considerable concern was recently expressed in the House about the lack of medical facilities in the event of an hon. Member being taken ill. The Lord President was sufficiently kind, after some pressure, to say that he had been able to make temporary arrangements for first-aid provision within the precincts of the Palace. However, I am not quite certain whether those provisions are available to us at this time of night or morning. This is just the very time, Mr. Deputy Speaker, if you examine the statistics, when people are most liable to be taken ill. There are two lows in the body's natural rhythm through 24 hours. They occur at 3 o'clock in the morning and 3 o'clock in the afternoon.

Mr. Robin F. Cook: It is past that now.

Mr. Tebbit: The hon. Gentleman is a little too quick. He forgets that we are not on Greenwich Meantime, but are on British Summer Time. In fact, the time is only a quarter past 3 o'clock. We are at the most critical phase. The hon. Member for East Kilbride (Dr. Miller) has reminded us that he is a doctor of medicine. No doubt he would like to take up—[Interruption.] The hon. Gentleman cannot make an exception. By the terms of his oath, he has to be a doctor of medicine to everybody.

4.15 a.m.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. We have had enough. First of all, the hon. Gentleman expresses concern for the Chair, and he then makes it feel ill because of


what he is saying. Will he please try to remain in order?

Mr. Tebbit: This is the sort of thing that happens at this time of the day. It is now a quarter-past three in body-clock time, a quarter-past four by statutory time, which is Greenwich Mean Time plus an hour. As we are on the Greenwich meridian, and as our bodies are acclimatized—

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I must ask the hon. Gentleman to keep his remarks relevant to the motion.

Mr. Tebbit: The motion before us is that we should adourn the debate. I am trying to put forward some of the reasons why we should do so. I am concerned with the health of my hon. Friends, of hon. Gentlemen opposite and particularly of you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, as the occupant of the Chair.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. Let me tell the hon. Gentleman that the occupant of the Chair is in excellent health.

Mr. Tebbit: I am glad to hear it. I am not a medical man, but I have a nagging feeling that if an hon. Member should be taken ill suddenly here and now we should feel responsible for having overtaxed his strength.

Mr. Bidwell: From where I stand, it is the hon. Member for Chingford (Mr. Tebbit) who is looking a little queer. Since there are doctors in the House, we can arrange for his pulse to be taken.

Mr. Tebbit: I hope that, even in these days of the Sex Discrimination Act, that was not meant to be unduly insulting. But I take it in the spirit in which it was probably meant, in which case it was pretty insulting. If we should now fail to accept the motion so cogently moved by my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Beaconsfield and if a Member of the House, or indeed a member of staff of the House, under strain from working at this hour and staying up all night long, were taken ill, we would all have that on our consciences. Therefore, I hope that the House will agree the motion so that it may speedily conclude its deliberations

and return to this matter at a more suitable time.

Mr. Freud: Mr. Freudrose—

Mr. Deputy Speaker: The hon. Gentleman has misunderstood the situation. We have not reached the Adjournment.

Mr. Freud: I should like to support the motion moved by the hon. and learned Member for Beaconsfield (Mr. Bell). This is not in any way because my politics have moved to the right but is simply because, if the motion were carried, I should be able to take up my Adjournment debate.
I was fortunate enough to have my name selected in the Ballot, and the subject of my Adjournment debate is the plight of handicapped children. I am delighted to see so many Ministers present on the Front Bench. The plight of the handicapped is not simply a subject for the Minister who has responsibilities in regard to the disabled but is equally a matter for the Treasury, the Home Office and the Department of Employment. The situation at the moment is that there are more handi-capped children—

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I again remind the hon. Gentleman that we have not yet reached the stage of the Adjournment. The hon. Gentleman may have misunderstood me. He must deal with the motion that is before the House, not with his Adournment motion.

Mr. Freud: With great respect, Mr. Deputy Speaker, my reasons were much better than those of the hon. Member for Chingford (Mr. Tebbit).
The reason why there are so many handicapped children is that medical resources now—

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I shall certainly not allow the Adjournment debate to take place at this stage.

Question put, That further consideration of the Bill, as amended, be now adjourned:

The House divided: Ayes, 13; Noes 78.

Lane, David
Stokes, John
TELLERS FOR THE NOES:


Lawrence, Ivan
Tebbit, Norman
Mr Ronald Bell and


Powell, Rt Hon J. Enoch
Winterton, Nicholas
Mr Nick Budgen.


Stanbrook, Ivor






NOES


Anderson, Donald
Hayman, Mrs Helene
Robinson, Geoffrey


Atkinson, Norman
Hooley, Frank
Roderick, Caerwyn


Bates, Alf
Jenkins, Rt Hon Roy (Stechford)
Rodgers, William (Stockton)


Bean, R. E.
John, Brynmor
Rooker, J. W.


Bidwell, Sydney
Johnson, James (Hull West)
Short, Mrs Renée (Wolv NE)


Blenkinsop, Arthur
Judd, Frank
Silkin, Rt Hon S. C. (Dulwich)


Booth, Rt Hon Albert
Kaufman, Gerald
Skinner, Dennis


Callaghan, Jim (Middleton &amp; P)
Kerr, Russell
Snape, Peter


Cocks, Michael (Bristol S)
Latham, Arthur (Paddington)
Spearing, Nigel


Coleman, Donald
Lestor, Miss Joan (Eton &amp; Slough)
Stallard, A. W.


Cook, Robin F. (Edin C)
Lipton, Marcus
Summerskill, Hon Dr Shirley


Corbett, Robin
Lyons, Edward (Bradford W)
Thomas, Ron (Bristol NW)


Cox, Thomas (Tooting)
McElhone, Frank
Tinn, James


Crowther, Stan (Rotherham)
MacFarquhar, Roderick
Tomlinson, John


Cryer, Bob
Mackenzie, Gregor
Walker, Harold (Doncaster)


Davidson, Arthur
Madden, Max
Walker, Terry (Kingswood)


Davis, Clinton (Hackney C)
Mendelson, John
Watkinson, John


Dormand, J. D.
Miller, Dr M. S. (E Kilbride)
White, Frank R. (Bury)


Eadie, Alex
Miller, Mrs Millie (Ilford N)
Whitehead, Phillip


Ellis, John (Brigg &amp; Scun)
Morris, Alfred (Wythenshawe)
Willey, Rt Hon Frederick


Faulds, Andrew
Newens, Stanley
Wise, Mrs Audrey


Flannery, Martin
O'Halloran, Michael
Wrigglesworth, Ian


Foot, Rt Hon Michael
Palmer, Arthur
Young, David (Bolton E)


George, Bruce
Pavitt, Laurie



Grant, John (Islington C)
Pendry, Tom
TELLERS FOR THE AYES:


Grocott, Bruce
Radice, Giles
Mr Ted Graham and


Hamilton, James (Bothwell)
Rees, Rt Hon Merlyn (Leeds S)
Mr David Stoddart.


Harrison, Walter (Wakefield)

Question accordingly negatived.

Clause 20

DISCRIMINATION IN PROVISION OF GOODS, FACILITIES OR SERVICES

Mr. Ronald Bell: I beg to move Amendment No. 6, in page 14, line 22, leave out 'or not'.
The side note to Clause 20 refers to:
Discrimination in provision of goods, facilities or services.
It is the first clause in a fascicle dealing with goods, facilities, services and premises. It states in subsection (1):
It is unlawful for any person concerned with the provision (for payment or not) of goods, facilities or services to the public or a section of the public to discriminate against a person who seeks to obtain or use those goods, facilities or services—".
Paragraphs (a) and (b) of subsection (1) set out the methods whereby a person would be deemed to have discriminated in the provision of goods, facilities or services. They state:

"(a) by refusing or deliberately omitting to provide him with any of them; or
(b) by refusing or deliberately omitting to provide him with goods, facilities or services of the like quality, in the like manner and on the like terms as are normal in the first-mentioned person's case in relation to other members of the public or (where the person so seeking belongs to a section of the public) to other members of that section."

Mr. John Page: After my hon. And learned friend made his quick dash from being a Teller in the last Division to move this amendment, he mentioned the word "premises". Do "premises" come under "facilities", or was there a natural slip of the tongue by my hon. and learned Friend?

Mr. Bell: I was relieved to hear the nature of that intervention. When my hon. Friend said that I dashed from being a Teller to moving an amendment, I thought I was about to be told that I had moved the wrong amendment. Fortunately, it was nothing as drastic.
What I said was that Clause 20 was the first clause in a fascicle—which means a little bundle—of clauses which are headed
Goods, facilities, services and premises.
If my hon. Friend will look at subsection (2) of the clause, although it is true that "premises" are not mentioned in the first part, he will see the words
The following are examples of the facilities and services mentioned in subsection (1).
There my hon. Friend will see that "access" is mentioned, and
accommodation in a hotel, boarding house or other similar establishment
and so on. So the answer is "Yes". However, although the first subsection does not mention premises, in practice it


covers them because "facilities" apparently includes "premises".

Mr. Powell: Clause 21.

Mr. Bell: Clause 21 concerns discrimination in disposal or management of premises, but my amendment relates to Clause 20. My hon. Friend the Member for Harrow, West (Mr. Page) asked whether the clause with which I am dealing related to premises. It does, but not in the way in which Clause 21 does. It relates in general to the provision of goods, facilities or services to the public or a section of the public, and "facilities" includes "premises" because subsection (2) says so. That is different from Clause 21, because here we are dealing with access or accommodation.
The particular point of the amendment is to leave out the words "or not" in the brackets which contain the words "for payment or not". As the brackets govern the whole of subsection (1) and as the rest of the clause is derivative from subsection (1), the words in the brackets govern the whole operation of the clause.
The effect of removing the words "or not" is that the relevant lines would read
It is unlawful for any person concerned with the provision (for payment) of goods, facilities or services to the public".
and so on. In other words, the part of the Bill relating to goods, facilities and services would relate only to people who provide them for payment. Someone who was providing goods, facilities or services not for payment would not be affected by the Bill. It is a little difficult to think of anything much to say, because what one is puzzled by is how anyone could think that the Bill should apply to people who were providing these things without payment, gratuitously as it were.
Let us take one of the examples given at the foot of the page—"facilities for education". When one thinks of someone who is, for example, a retired university teacher who merely as a volunteer invites people to listen to him lecturing on some subject on which he is an expert, not being paid for it, it seems a little hard to understand why he should be subject to this rigorous prescription.
I do not approve of the policy of the Bill, but I can understand those who want

to apply it to commercial operations. Why apply it to people who are not in commercial operation but are acting gratuitously and voluntarily? I cannot remember offhand whether there is a similar provision in the Sex Discrimination Act. Suppose that the retired university professor did not like teaching women and invited young men from a neighbouring university to his home to give them instruction. Why should he not do so? He would not be charging for his instruction. Similarly, why should not someone in that capacity say that he wants only native British people? He is not charging, he is not discharging a public function, and I cannot see why the provisions of the Bill should apply to him.
Education is mentioned in the clause and that is why I mention those examples. There are others. If someone is willing to offer a loan free of interest, why should he be subject to the provisions of the Bill? The clause contains the words "(for payment or not)". I am proposing to leave out those words and confine the application of the clause to those who are not volunteers.
The amendment applies to the provision of any kind of services. It is more difficult to imagine the provision of goods not for payment. Retired people might provide refreshments free of charge in a remote part of the country. I cannot see why they should not be at liberty to refuse to supply someone. There are probably multifarious examples of services being supplied free of payment. There is a vast amount of unpaid activity in the community, and the provisions of the Bill should not be applied to it.
I suspect that the Minister will say that there is gratuitous provision that is comparable to paid provision and that people might prefer not to be paid so that they would be able to discriminate on grounds of race or colour. My answer to that is that it is surely their business. The moment they go out of the sphere of payment, they leave commercial operation and enter into the private side of life. They should be entitled to do what they want to do.
4.45 a.m.
There are to my knowledge many people in the community who do not take the same general view of these matters as do the Government Front Bench. There are people who wish to confine


their social activities to members of the indigenous community, and they are perfectly entitled to do so. Indeed, in the purely social aspects of life no one has yet suggested that they should not be free to do so. If one is giving a tennis party, one can invite whom one likes. I begin to wonder, however, whether that is not confined to one's home, although presumably if one hired courts for the purpose it could be said that it was not being provided for members of the public, so I suppose there would be an escape that way.
There must be many cases where people offer services gratuitously—for example, refreshment in some remote area offered by people who still want to retain a veto. Why should they not do so? They are offering a service to a section of the public. That phrase "section of the public" is becoming very recondite. There has been litigation up to the House of Lords. When the meaning of "section of the public" was in relation to clubs, the advice I gave in a professional capacity was cast aside by the Court of Appeal but sustained by the House of Lords. The whole meaning of the expression is doubtful, as is shown by the fact that the Court of Appeal gave it one meaning and the House of Lords gave it another.

Mr. Nicholas Winterton: I am fascinated by my hon. and learned Friend's case. Will he direct his attention to the many thousands of people who give voluntary services unpaid within the social services, perhaps reading to the blind or visiting elderly people? My understanding is that it would be an offence if they showed any sort of discrimination.

Mr. Bell: My hon. Friend has provided a very good example. I was casting around for examples on the spur of the moment. The example he has suggested clearly falls cleanly into the category to which I am referring, and it seems to that someone engaging in such voluntary work should be entitled to decide within what scope he or she will render that service. The extraordinary thing is, however, that if such a person wanted to go into an occupation where there was a body which had to consider good character, such an exercise of judgment would stamp him or her statutorily as a person

of bad character. That is the way the Bill will work unless the amendment is accepted.
If my amendment is accepted, a person doing voluntary work and rendering services gratuituously to a section of the public would be free to have views which are not those of the Home Secretary, and not the views of Hampstead, Holland Park or wherever these views derive from. Somebody could hold views, live according to them and not be stigmatised as a racialist—

Mr. Bidwell: Is it a stigma to be called a racialist?

Mr. Bell: The hon. Gentleman, as far as I can see, is not on his feet, although I can see his feet.

Mr. Bidwell: If the hon. and learned Gentleman held a cricket party, it might well be a better assembly if he had a few West Indians there. It might enrich his life. But it would be obnoxious to to say that no blacks need apply. That is what the Bill is about.

Mr. Bell: I have not heard a better jumble of rubbish than that. I am not talking about a cricket party, with or without West Indians, or whether it would be better or worse if they were there. That has nothing to do with the amendment. As for enriching my life, that is a very important subject indeed which the House could well debate on another occasion.

Mr. Nicholas Winterton: My hon. and learned Friend is enriching ours.

Mr. Bell: I have forgotten the rest of the intervention by the hon. Member for Ealing, Southall (Mr. Bidwell), but I am sure it was for the best. He has not enriched my life either on this occasion or on previous occasions.
I hope I shall not be thought unappreciative if I now return to the amendment. I think I was saying that it was not altogether easy for me to think of examples of gratuitous service with the element of generality necessary to enable them to fall within the definition of providing services to the public or a section of the public, but plainly such examples exist on a considerable scale. However, rather than make provision for them in the Bill my view is that nothing should


be done about them. Those who wish to pick and choose should be free to do so.
If the intervention by the hon. Member for Southall meant anything, I think it was that people should not be free to pick and choose even in these uncommercial aspects of their lives. This is a matter of opinion. It is surely for them to decide what enriches their lives. It is not for the hon. Member for Southall, it is not for the Home Office and indeed, with respect, it is not for Parliament to decide.
Although I am committed for the time being by the principle of the Bill to conceding a supply of goods and services in relation to payment, I am not, of course, forced to concede it in relation to voluntary service. I moved the amendment believing that it would be a considerable relief to people who would be quite oppressively affected by the clause if these words were not omitted from it.

Mr. Stokes: I am glad, once again, to support the amendment so ably and interestingly moved by my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Beaconsfield (Mr. Bell). Perhaps I may interpose and say that his contributions to our debates during this long night have been notable. I am sure that if the Press, as I hope they do, report what my hon. and learned Friend has said that his views will be re-echoed by millions of people throughout the country.

Mr. Flannery: Only by the National Front.

Mr. Stokes: Does the hon. Gentleman wish to intervene?

Mr. Flannery: Having listened to the views of hon. Gentlemen opposite the point I am making is that they will be absolutely welcomed by the most wretched elements in our society, in particular, by the National Front, for the sheer racialism which we have been subjected to throughout this long night by hon. Gentlemen opposite.

Mr. Stokes: I am not clear from that rather rude and intemperate interjection whether the hon. Gentleman was referring to me personally—I have said only two sentences—or whether he was referring to my colleagues. But in whichever capacity the hon. Gentleman was speaking—he claims to be an educated man who

was once a deputy headmaster—it was a very rude and offensive intervention.
If I may return to the amendment, the purpose of the amendment is to attempt to reduce the size and scope of this clause, which covers not only trade and what, I suppose, one could call ordinary commercial transactions. If the words are not omitted, it would also include voluntary organisations for which no payment is demanded, and presumably it would also cover all forms of charitable activities.
It is well known that, with certain notable exceptions, most hon. Members on the Government side of the House prefer as many activities as possible to be channelled through the State and to be State financed, State controlled and State organised. But those of us whose knowledge of history is perhaps longer than some hon. Members opposite, will know that many of the great movements of this country have been voluntary ones, not State ones, and that in trade and industry many great inventions—in fact nearly all the great inventions—have been achieved by private enterprise and not by bodies such as the NEB or, for heaven's sake, the nationalised industries.
I hope that when I hear the Minister sum up later that I am wrong, but I fear that the addition of the two words "or not" are all-embracing. They will embrace public and private life. They are nothing less than an attack on the voluntary spirit which has been the glory of this country for so long. I also fear that the clause, as at present drafted, is another attack on privacy and on private life and on what we do with our own lives. Some of us choose to spend some or our time doing voluntary work which is entirely unsupervised, separate from and independent of any Government agency or activity.
5.0 a.m.
I fear that the clause is typical of the Government's desire to interfere in every possible sphere. Discrimination itself is a highly personal matter. We all discriminate every day in almost very action. So that alone offends privacy. In trade, the provision of goods and service and voluntary activity, the Government have to stick their finger in. This clause is law-making gone mad. Or perhaps it is the result of the fact that parliamentary


draftsmen, in every Department, regrettably, have so many Bills, that they decide to get the maximum out of each one.
The clause is another abuse of freedom and privacy. We have heard of the thin end of the wedge. This clause is the thick end of the wedge. In 14 hours' debate the Government have made no concessions. They have been absolutely inflexible. Their minds appear to have been completely closed to the constructive suggestions that we have made. This is an opportunity, without damage to the main fabric of the Bill, to agree to a small but important amendment affecting the liberty and private lives of thousands of citizens.

Mr. Powell: At first sight the amendment might appear of small importance, but the more it is studied the more it will be found to disclose an important division and distinction in the whole subject of discrimination. Most hon. Members would acknowledge that those who hold themselves out to trade with the public, to offer services, facilities and goods for sale, thereby accept the case in principle for some public regulation of the manner in which they conduct their trade.
We might argue case by case what forms of regulation were necessary and justified, but there is something in the nature of the activity of holding oneself out to provide, for payment, goods, services and facilities to the public which is not only consistent with public regulation by law but may in certain cases positively attract it.
I have made no secret of the fact that I believe that in principle the whole of this legislation is perverse. Nevertheless, there is an important distinction between applying it to those who are offering goods and so on by way of trade and those who are doing so for no remuneration or payment. We are there in the scope of the biblical phrase:
Shall I not do what I will with mine own?
I would certainly not be disposed to treat many of the parables of the Gospel as intended to be directly applicable to ordinary, still less to economic, life. Whereas, in the case of the parable of the lord of the vineyard which I have quoted, the reference is clearly not to relationships between human beings but

to the relationship of God the Father with the children of men, I do not seek to draw a direct deduction from the text to public behaviour.
Still the phrase is there:
Shall I not do what I will with mine own?
When the law undertakes the interfering with what a person is doing of his own accord, with his own goods, without payment or remuneration, not by way of trade, not entering into any kind of an actual or imputed contract with any other person, we have moved into an entirely different sphere.
The consequences of bringing the law to bear and applying the whole machinery of investigation and the rest of it which is set up by the Bill, are a degree more serious than in the context of trade. I find little difficulty in imagining quite a number of cases which might fall within the ambit of this subsection if the words "or not" remain part of it. There may, for example, be persons, horticulturists or farmers, who, faced with a glut of some kind of produce, think it proper, and choose, to distribute the surplus which they have not profitably disposed of, by giving it to members of the public who may pass the gate or who may, by invitation, call to collect the goods thus offered.
Or again, there are undoubtedly persons who, at their own expense, for purposes which they think good, distribute informative works, or what they may regard as informative works, such as books or pamphlets, generally to members of the public. These are cases which are perfectly practicable and could easily happen. It is not an abstract case to which my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Beasonsfield (Mr. Bell) was addressing himself.
I can understand that from the point of view of some it might appear offensive and objectionable that a person distributing his own goods gratis to the public should take it upon himself to discriminate between one member of the public and another. It may be that we in this place would not choose to do that. But that is not the question. The question is whether we are justified, even given the presumptions of this legislation, in applying this measure in that sphere where there is no implied contract with the public—no trade—and where a person is


acting entirely voluntarily in the disposition freely of his own goods, time or services. I think that those strictures which my hon. and learned Friend has two or three times in the sitting made upon the whole principle of anti-discriminatory legislation are brought into specially sharp focus in this case.
Here, above all, we are arrogating not only to ourselves but to the State the right to examine and penalise not merely the acts generally of the citizen but the actions of the citizen when he is disposing freely of his own goods and time.

Mr. Flannery: Can the right hon. Gentleman conceive of a situation where a voluntary worker taking books round a hospital on a trolley did not like the colour of the person who was sick in a particular hospital and deliberately passed by that person because of that personal dislike? Is the right hon. Gentleman saying that that kind of thing should be accepted and permitted in the civilised society in which, I take it, he and I are agreed we live?

Mr. Powell: I should be very surprised if the case adumbrated by the hon. Member for Sheffield, Hillsborough (Mr. Flannery) would fall within this clause. In my view in those circumstances it would be the hospital or organisation which was providing facilities. The regulations of the hospital or the organisation would govern its behaviour.
But I shall go further to meet the hon. Member for Sheffield, Hillsborough (Mr. Flannery). I say that I personally would find it objectionable if in any one of the cases that I cited a person who was distributing his own goods deliberately refused that offer of goods to a coloured person. I tell the hon. Gentleman that I would find that objectionable. I would not like it and I would prefer that it was not done.
The question is whether it is better or not that he and I should insist upon our standards, our likes and dislikes, our judgment being imposed by law and by the machinery of the Bill, not upon a person who is trading—because that is a different matter—but upon a person who is freely disposing of his own goods.
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman because his dialogue, applied to the two words which the amendment proposes to

leave out, highlights the nature of the legislation. Indeed, it highlights it in the extreme case, because it is an extreme case of legislative intervention. We must ask ourselves, agreeing that we would not behave in that way and that we do not like the notion of people behaving in that way, whether it is on balance conducive to good relations between members of the public, whether it is on balance conducive to respect for the law, that the elaborate machinery of the legislation should be applied in such cases.

Mr. Nicholas Winterton: Further to the example quoted by the hon. Member for Sheffield, Hillsborough (Mr. Flannery), is not the answer to that sad and tragic case, which we would not like to see happen, that the district hospital administrator would ask the voluntary organisation to replace that person doing that job in the hospital?

Mr. Powell: I am sure that that would happen.
I turn to the type of case to which the clause would apply with the words "or not". All of us in the debate are faced with the question, "Are we going to impose by the machinery of the law, our judgment—not merely our taste—of what would be proper behaviour upon persons who are merely engaged in disposing gratis, at their own discretion, for their own reasons, of their own goods and time"? If we say "Yes" in answer to that challenge, we are carried far indeed, and the scope of the law, of the State, will receive an extension which is virtually unlimited.
We may still, whatever might be our respective opinion of the importance or usefulness of law, accept more legislation than I am disposed to accept. We might differ in that. But even given that difference, we would have to decide whether on balance good or harm would be done by the introduction of that law. That is the question. My judgment is that we would be well advised—if we are to have this legislation at all—to stop short of the voluntary and gratuitous activity of individual members of the public.

5.15 a.m.

Mr. Nicholas Winterton: It is always a great pleasure to follow my right hon. Friend the Member for Down, South (Mr.


Powell). I do not pretend that I can emulate his ability to use Biblical references.
It will be clear from my earlier intervention that my main concern is voluntary organisations and individuals who give their services to the public free of charge. Personal and intimate relationships are excluded from all race relations legislation to date, but the Minister may indicate that worse may be to come for this country in the brave new world of artificially-enforced behaviour. Perhaps that has already been indicated in the White Paper on racial discrimination, which declared on page 15:
exceptions may need to be modified in the light of experience".
That is a threatening phrase which fills me with deep suspicion.
In dealing with the categories that I believe will be adversely affected by the Bill, I speak as someone who is closely involved with voluntary organisations such as youth clubs, community centres and the councils for voluntary services. Within such bodies tens of thousands of people give their time voluntarily for the benefit of the public. I have referred to those who read to the blind, a service often provided by councils for voluntary service and similar organisations. The people concerned will surely be allowed to choose those to whom they provide the service and will not be instructed to go to this person or that person. If they do not care to go to someone who is yellow, black or white, or who is handicapped, are they to be affected by the legislation?
Voluntary organisations provide a car service to transport elderly people to their specialist day-care accommodation and social gatherings. Are the people involved likely to be affected?
What about those within the youth and community service who are providing their services free, perhaps to teach a group of young people an art, science, game or sport? If they do not care to do that for someone of a particular colour, creed and ethnic group, are they to be discriminated against by the legislation?

Mr. Russell Kerr: I hope so.

Mr. Winterton: The exclusion of personal and intimate relationships must

cover those who give their services voluntarily. Those people should not be restricted by State legislation affecting the sort of people to whom they can offer their services. Perhaps I would not choose to eat or drink with the hon. Gentleman.

Mr. Tebbit: Very wise.

Mr. Russell Kerr: That is reciprocated.

Mr. Winterton: The hon. Gentleman is showing discrimination, but because we are both white there is no problem. However, if the hon. Gentleman happened to be coloured, or if I were coloured, it would be a crime under this legislation. That demonstrates that this legislation is farcical.
I say with all sincerity that a tremendous service is provided for the deserving, the deprived and the elderly by those acting in a voluntary capacity. They represent a huge wealth of talent. They give freely of their time, service, experience and qualifications. Surely we do not wish to see them put off or restricted in the work that they are so willing to do by being subject to this pernicious legislation. I cannot feel that the Government really wish that to happen.
If the Government do not wish many people to be driven out of voluntary service, they will not resist the amendment that has been capably and eloquently moved by my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Beaconsfield (Mr. Bell). It is a simple amendment, but perhaps it is relatively profound, as the right hon. Member for Down, South has indicated. It separates those who perhaps would expect to have some legislative restriction on what they are doing because they are entering into commercial or trading transactions from those who provide their service, experience and time voluntarily. Surely it would be wrong for those who undertake voluntary work to be affected by this legislation.
It could have grave consequences for the hundreds of thousands of individuals and the hundreds of voluntary bodies that do tremendous voluntary work if they were brought within this legislation. It would cost the Exchequer perhaps hundreds of millions of pounds, perhaps even thousands of millions of pounds, to


provide the services that are now provided at no cost by means of paid employees. Having been involved in the provision of various services for some years, I know from the people I have met who benefit from them that in the main it is the services that are provided by those who undertake them voluntarily that they most appreciate.
I hope that my remarks will be considered sympathetically. It has already been said that not one concession has been made by the Government on this important Bill. I think that they could show willing. They could show responsibility by realising—I admit that I have said that I do not wish this measure ever to reach the statute book—that the Bill has had a Second Reading and that it is now our duty to improve it. I believe that the removal of the two words from the clause will be of considerable benefit to the Bill. I ask the Government to look sympathetically at the amendment, and to consider in another place, if not now, making arrangements for the two words to be removed.

Mr. John Page: I agree with what has been said in support of the amendment. My hon. and learned Friend the Member for Beaconsfield (Mr. Bell) said that there was a difference between services given free and those for which payment is made or things undertaken in the course of trade. There is a danger—admittedly far-fetched at the moment—that because of legislation of this kind people may feel afraid to offer their services. That could happen once these attitudes spread. Therefore, my hon. and learned Friend, who is my Member of Parliament, has done a great service in pinpointing this small but important difference.
I wish to ask the Minister two questions. I was not on the Standing Committee, and if these matters were raised and answered in Committee I apologise for raising them again now. First, there is in North-West London a large Jewish community. They are admirable, responsible, thoughtful and extremely publicly-spirited people. It is the experience of many colleagues that very few Jewish or Asian constituents coming to see us in our interview rooms with personal family problems. Therefore, I wish to ask whether the Jewish com-

munity is considered a religious group which is not included in the Bill or whether it is considered as an ethnic group covered by the Bill.
I believe that the Jewish community has by practice come to be known as an ethnic group. Therefore, it is important that the position of the Jewish community, its charities, hospitals and so on, should be carefully spelt out. If the Jewish community is to be considered an ethnic group, it would probably be improper for a Jewish hospital or a Jewish convalescent home to admit only Jewish people. That matter should be carefully considered.
Secondly, I am responsible for the choice of scholarship at a school which is basically a Church of England school. If the Minister says that the Jews are an ethnic group, I suppose it would be unlawful if a Jewish parent applied for his child to receive such a scholarship and it had to be refused on those grounds. That could easily happen. It is less material in connection with another school which is for the orphan sons of members of the Armed Services. Although possibly an application could come from an ex-Indian army widow for the inclusion of her child's name, the applicant would have to be a Jew to become a recipient of the scholarship. Will the Minister say whether adoption of any form is covered by the Bill?
5.30 a.m.
Is an adoption society included in subsection (2)? There could be a danger for an adoption society which might deal with coloured children differently from white children. But if this point is covered, I will not labour it.
It is important that the whole of this Bill should not be considered as providing facilities or protection for the minorities only. I hope that this will be constantly emphasised. However, if that is the case, is it lawful for voluntary services under this provision to be given to immigrants only? If there is an advice bureau for immigrants only, is this not discriminating against the local community? This is a serious problem. If an advice bureau for immigrants were considered unlawful, that would mean that any members of the native polulation should be able to go there as well to get advice. That point should be made clear.
I hope that the Minister will answer these specific questions—I am particularly anxious to have an explanation of the position of the Jewish community.

Mr. Tebbit: I find this clause, as it is drawn at present, most odious. It strikes me as being a perfectly natural and normal thing for a man to decide to give away part of his property as an act of charity on a continuing basis, perhaps as a service or as goods without charge. It is odious that the law should intervene and tell him to whom he may or may not give his goods.
It is particularly extraordinary that it will not be an offence—and nor it should be—for someone to refuse to accept such services on the ground that they find the race, colour or origin of the giver objectionable. But the giver may not object to the recipient, in any way, on grounds of race, colour, origin and all the other bits and pieces under the Bill.
It seems extraordinary that one can refuse to give goods, facilities, or services to people on the grounds that they are one-eyed, one-legged, of particularly low intelligence, or particularly high intelligence, or any other respect except those related to their ethnic origin, nationality, or other mumbo-jumbo words in the beginning of the Bill.
Even worse, there are ample opportunities for finding ways to be even more insulting to members of other communities while avoiding, in some circumstances, certain aspects of the Bill. My hon. Friend the Member for Harrow, West (Mr. Page) mentioned the Jewish community. I hope that no one will accuse me of being prejudiced against that community. I fancy that the hon. Member for Smethwick (Mr. Faulds) would probably chastise me for not being sufficiently prejudiced against them. It is possible so to construct the way in which one's goods are given away as to be so offensive to members of a community—for example, the Jewish community—that in no circumstances could they dream of accepting them. It seems that they would be lawful but that to say one will not give them to Jewish people will be unlawful.
I regard that as a most unpleasant and unwise way of conducting one's affairs.

But the world is full of unwise and unpleasant people, and many of them behave in a way of which we would not approve. But if we are to decide that merely on those grounds we shall legislate to compel them to do particular things in particular ways, that will probably cause those people to become even more unpleasant and anti-social in their behaviour.
After all, should we not rejoice if someone is willing to cook meals and distribute them to at least a part of the population, even if they will not distribute them to the whole of the population in their area? Have we now become so priggish and prejudiced that we insist that a person must be wholly good by our standards and not just partially good? If we continue down that road we shall find that those who might otherwise give money, goods or services in a charitable way to some people, if not others, will finish giving them to no one and retreating into a rather less charitable and generous way of conducting their affairs.

Mr. Nicholas Winterton: My hon. Friend mentioned earlier that a voluntary worker might not be willing to provide a service for disabled people perhaps because the service was visually unpleasant. Will he consider the case where someone providing free transport to people is unwilling to give a lift to a particular person—it may or may not be a coloured person—because of strong body odour which makes him feel ill? This has happened. Such cases have come to my attention.

Mr. Tebbit: I would prefer not to give too much consideration to the point. Rather would I consider the case of someone who might not mind taking people to hospital in his car if they have broken limbs, but will not take the mentally ill, a mongol child or a child with polio. That would be extremely regrettable, but I would not regard it as a matter for legislation. These are areas in which the State has no business to make laws. After all, it is only recently that this House has liberalised many areas of human conduct, so that those which were unlawful not long ago are now lawful. We did so broadly on the basis that it is not for the State to adjudicate on questions of morality.
Here we are adjudicating on these very same questions. Suppose a person said he would distribute his goods, chattels or services to anyone who came along—except a homosexual. The law might prohibit that action in future, but it rightly does not prohibit it now. That area of conduct has been freed from restriction by the law in recent years. Here we are going in precisely the opposite direction.
I presume that one could refuse to carry a homosexual black man in one's car while agreeing to carry what one would refer to as a normal person. Yet one could not refuse to carry a person because he was black, German or Jewish.
The hon. Member for Ealing, Southall (Mr. Bidwell) is muttering. If he thinks that the areas covered by the Bill are proper matters for legislation, he must consider whether he should not go further still, into some of the areas I have just described. Why is it proper to discriminate against homosexuals or people who are mentally ill, but not proper, in law, to discriminate against somebody of a different race?
I regard discrimination solely on grounds of race as unpleasant and I would not want to be part of it. But it becomes increasingly difficult to decide—when dealing with broad categories which overlap in many ways—whether a person is discriminating on grounds of race or on other grounds.
It has been conceded that there should be no element of discrimination in many commercial transactions. I agree that it would be improper to discriminate against a West Indian in the granting of motor insurance because he was a West Indian. However, if it were shown that West Indians had more accidents than Sikhs, I should not think it wrong for a motor insurer to charge a West Indian client a higher premium. He would be discriminating on grounds of experience and not of race. If one community had habits that a person found objectionable, it would not be wrong for him to say, for instance, that he would give none of them a lift in his car, though he would carry the members of other communities.
We are blundering around in size 14 legislative boots all over the private lives of people, without any consideration of why they act the way they do or why we

should prohibit them from so acting. It is bad enough in commercial transactions, but we are going too far when we legislate on how people may dispose of their goods in a charitable fashion. If the Bill is to go on the statute book, at least we might make this further small improvement by the amendment.

5.45 a.m.

The Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Dr. Shirley Summers-kill): The hon. and learned Member for Beaconsfield (Mr. Bell) may recall that he attempted to make a similar amendment to this to Clause 2 of the Race Relations Bill in 1968. He tabled that amendment. It was moved by the right hon. and learned Member for Huntingdonshire (Sir D. Renton) and then withdrawn, so he was not totally persistent.

Mr. Ronald Bell: That shows the folly of allowing one's hon. Friends to move amendments when one cannot rely on them to persist.

Dr. Summerskill: There is no more reason why the House should accept that amendment today than there was in 1968.

Mr. Bell: Nor less.

Dr. Summerskill: My right hon. Friend who is now Secretary of State for Social Services pointed out at that time that there was—as there is now—a wide variety of facilities and services which were provided to the public free of charge and which there was no reason then to exclude from the scope of the Bill. There is no more reason now to exclude them. In fact, the arguments against the amendment are today stronger than they were in 1968 by reason of the fact that Section 2 of the 1968 Act, which makes it unlawful to discriminate in the provision "whether for payment or otherwise" of goods, facilities and services to the public or a section of the public, has been on the statute book for nearly eight years. To take now the deliberate step of excepting the provision without charge of goods, facilities and services from generally strengthened legislation would be an indication that Parliament regards such discrimination as in some way right or justifiable.
The proposers of the amendment seem to overlook—perhaps they did not overlook this—the wide range of facilities that the public are using and enjoying where


there is no direct, on-the-spot payment. Perhaps I may mention the whole facilities of the housing departments and the opportunity for people to register their complaints, and the whole facilities offered by local authorities in an advisory or information service capacity.

Mr. Nicholas Winterton: They are paid for by the rates.

Dr. Summerskill: Many of these facilities are used, such as parks and recreation grounds.

Mr. Winterton: Rates and taxes.

Dr. Summerskill: They are used by people who are not necessarily paying rates in the area of the particular park or recreation ground. They may be paying rates somewhere else, but there is no direct payment. There are also library facilities and public gardens. A wide variety of facilities is available for which there is no direct payment.

Mr. Bell: These are all local authority services. If that is the only argument that the hon. Lady can advance, why is the Bill not drafted so as to apply it to local authorities as regards the provision of free services but to leave out its application to individuals?

Dr. Summerskill: That is not the only argument that I shall be advancing, but it is one of them.
As the Bill says, these are
goods, facilities or services to the public or a section of the public".
These are available. In fact, the Bill gives as an example,
facilities for entertainment, recreation or refreshment
and
access to and use of any place which members of the public are permitted to enter.
Therefore, it is only right to consider the places I have mentioned as falling into those examples, where there is no direct, on-the-spot payment. Perhaps a person has paid rates in Scotland. He can still come to London and sit in a park which is paid for by the rates of Londoners.

Mr. Tebbit: If that is the area in which the hon. Lady is concerned, why is the clause not drawn more tightly? Please do not tell me that it was in an

earlier Act. Before the 1968 Act, how many complaints were made of people being refused admission to public parks on the ground of race, ethnic origin or nationality?

Dr. Summerskill: I cannot give the figures for which the hon. Gentleman asks. That does not mean that we cannot put in the Bill a wide-ranging clause to make it unlawful to discriminate. That is the difference between the Government and hon. Members who have spoken. We want Clause 29 to be a wide-ranging clause. The supporters of the amendment admitted that they wanted to reduce the scope of the Bill. There is a complete difference of principle between us.
It was argued that the freedom of people who do voluntary work should not be interfered with. The Government feel that discrimination is wrong, whether or not the provision of the facility or service is paid for. Opposition Members agree that discrimination is wrong if a person is being paid. We want to make sure that discrimination is wrong if a person is not being paid. We see no distinction between the two.
Let me take an example. Surely there is no distinction between a discotheque provided by a voluntary body and a discotheque provided by a commercial undertaking which makes a charge? It is equally wrong to discriminate on grounds of race between people who want to enjoy those facilities. I could give many other examples. There is a clear difference of principle here.
I was asked about the homes and other facilities specifically provided for Jewish people. The provision of services which are restricted to individual racial groups would be unlawful under Clause 20, but Clause 35 provides an exception specifically to cover racial groups which have special needs, for instance in education or welfare, which can be covered only by special provision.
The supporters of the amendment believe that, if there is to be legislation, its scope should not extend beyond transactions by way of profit. The Government believe that, as under the 1968 Act, all transactions involving the public should be covered and, further that all facilities and goods and services available to the public, whether or not for


payment, should be covered. That is the clear division of principle.

Mr. Nicholas Winterton: My understanding is that personal relationships have not been included in any race relations legislation. Is there a change in Government policy? A great deal of voluntary work is on a personal relationship basis.

Dr. Summerskill: Presumably what the hon. Gentleman means is a one-to-one relationship. The clause refers to the
provision … of goods, facilities or services to the public or a section of the public".
That is where the type of relationship is defined in the clause. I ask my right hon. and hon. Friends to oppose the amendment.

Division No. 228.]
AYES
[5.56 a.m.


Bell, Ronald
Fraser, Rt Hon H. (Stafford &amp; St)



Bennett, Sir Frederic (Torbay)
Powell, Rt Hon J. Enoch
TELLERS FOR THE AYES:


Biffen, John
Stokes, John
Mr John Page and


Boscawen, Hon Robert
Tebbit, Norman
Mr Ivor Stanbrook.


Budgen, Nick
Winterton, Nicholas





NOES


Anderson, Donald
Harrison, Walter (Wakefield)
Robinson, Geoffrey


Atkinson, Norman
Hayman, Mrs Helene
Roderick, Caerwyn


Bean, R. E.
Hooley, Frank
Rodgers, William (Stockton)


Bidwell, Sydney
Jenkins, Rt Hon Roy (Stechford)
Short, Mrs Renée (Wolv NE)


Blenkinsop, Arthur
John, Brynmor
Silkin, Rt Hon S. C. (Dulwich)


Booth, Rt Hon Albert
Johnson, James (Hull West)
Skinner, Dennis


Callaghan, Jim (Middleton &amp; P)
Judd, Frank
Snape, Peter


Cocks, Michael (Bristol S)
Kaufman, Gerald
Spearing, Nigel


Coleman, Donald
Kerr, Russell
Stoddart, David


Cook, Robin F. (Edin C)
Latham, Arthur (Paddington)
Summerskltl, Hon Dr Shirley


Corbett, Robin
Lestor, Miss Joan (Eton &amp; Slough)
Thomas, Ron (Bristol NW)


Cox, Thomas (Tooting)
Lipton, Marcus
Tinn, James


Crowther, Stan (Rotherham)
Lyons, Edward (Bradford W)
Tomlinson, John


Cryer, Bob
McElhone, Frank
Walker, Harold (Doncaster)


Davidson, Arthur
MacFarquhar, Roderick
Walker, Terry (Kingswood)


Davis, Clinton (Hackney C)
Mackenzie, Gregor
Ward, Michael


Dormand, J. D.
Madden, Max
Watkinson, John


Eadie, Alex
Miller, Dr M. S. (E Kilbride)
White, Frank R. (Bury)


Ellis, John (Brigg &amp; Scun)
Miller, Mrs Millie (Ilford N)
Whitehead, Phillip


Faulds, Andrew
Morris, Alfred (Wythenshawe)
Willey, Rt Hon Frederick


Flannery, Martin
Newens, Stanley
Wise, Mrs Audrey


Foot, Rt Hon Michael
O'Halloran, Michael
Wrigglesworth, Ian


George, Bruce
Palmer, Arthur
Young, David (Bolton E)


Graham, Ted
Pavitt, Laurie



Grant, John (Islington C)
Pendry, Tom
TELLERS FOR THE NOES:


Grocott, Bruce
Radice, Glies
Mr A W Stallard and


Hamilton, James (Bothwell)
Rees, Rt Hon Merlyn (Leeds S)
Mr Alf Bates.

Question accordingly negatived.

Clause 25

DISCRIMINATION: ASSOCIATIONS NOT WITHIN SECTION 11

Mr. Alison: I beg to move amendment No. 7, in page 17, line 12, leave out Clause 25.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: With this we may take Amendment No. 40, in page 18, line 4, leave out Clause 26.

Mr. Ronald Bell: I find that reply most disappointing. The hon. Lady has simply addressed herself to the question whether discrimination is right or wrong, which is basically a matter of opinion anyway, and not to the relevant question whether there should be a law about it in particular circumstances. Even if it is acceptable that there should be a law about it in commercial operations, it is very much less acceptable when the operation is not commercial but voluntary. I mean this as no personal criticism, but her reply was inadequate, and I ask my hon. Friends to support the amendment.

Question put, That the amendment be made:—

The House divided: Ayes 9, Noes 77.

Mr. Alison: I am particularly glad that Mr. Speaker selected this amendment. Although in Committee we had, as the Minister of State will recollect, quite an extensive debate on the subject of clubs, and whether they should be in this Bill, nevertheless this is a subject about which hon. and right hon. Members in many parts of the House are interested on behalf of a great many constituents. It is particularly helpful, therefore, that Mr. Speaker has given us the opportunity to raise this matter in a wider forum. A


great many of my hon. and right hon. Friends will want to speak about it.
We do not believe that private clubs and associations can or, on principle, should be brought into the ambit of this kind of legislation. I use the term "private" advisedly because I am not sure that genuinely private social clubs are what the Government were originally trying to get at. On Second Reading, the Secretary of State referred first to the House of Lords decision which raised this issue, and said:
As a result, some 4,000 working men's clubs, with a total membership of about 3½ million, are not covered by the 1968 Act. In some towns these clubs have replaced public houses as the main providers of facilities for entertainment, recreation and refreshment. In addition, thousands of golf, squash, tennis and other sporting clubs are almost certainly outside the scope of the 1968 Act, although the House of Lords has not pronounced specifically on that issue."—[Official Report, 4th March 1976; Vol. 960, c. 1554.]
The clubs he had in mind were the semipublic services—places of entertainment and recreation, sporting clubs which are not selective on social criteria, open to anyone who is prepared to pay the green fee or subscription.
The White Paper drew a parallel in paragraph 72 between the kind of clubs at which the legislation is aimed and other kinds of institution:
The Government believes that the relationship between members of clubs is no more personal and intimate than is the relationship between people in many situations which are rightly covered by the 1968 Act; for example, the members of a small firm or trade union branch, children at school, or tenants in multi-occupied housing accommodation.
So again the parallel is between clubs and other institutions deploying semipublic services.
So far, it seems logical. But the Government's proposals become contradictory when it comes to the basis of the definition of a club. They define it in a way which logically differentiates it from the kind of semi-public services which the Secretary of State mentioned on Second Reading and which the White Paper described.
6.15 a.m.
The White Paper continues with these words, which provide the formula for determining the kinds of institutions on which the legislation is meant to bite:

The Government considers that it is right that all clubs should be allowed to apply a test of personal acceptability to candidates for membership".
It is this test of personal acceptability which absolutely differentiates a club from these other kinds of institutions or bodies or gatherings of people which the Home Secretary and above all the White Paper specified.
A body which is empowered to apply a test of personal acceptability, such as a club, cannot have the same kind of relationship between its members as that which exists between members of bodies such as the Government have set out in the White Paper. For example, how is it conceivable for anyone to argue that a small firm or trade union branch could be organised on the basis of the personal acceptability of the members to one another? How could it conceivably be argued that the admissibility of a child to a school should be based, philosophically and logically, on the acceptability of the child to the headmaster or headmistress or the other pupils? How could it conceivably be argued that in the allocation of tenancies for multi-occupied housing accommodation by local authorities a test of personal acceptability is the criterion which must logically be applied before the accommodation is made available?
Yet it is precisely in relation to the trade unions, children at school and tenants in multi-occupied accommodation, that the Government bring forward in the White Paper the logic for including clubs, because they say that the same sort of relationships obtain—intimate and close. They then go on, ludicrously in my view in terms of logic, to give the game away by saying that in clubs, nevertheless, the essential criterion must remain, namely the personal acceptability of the members to one another.

Mr. Atkinson: Is not this matter of definition determined by the fact that the person who wants to enter the club can do so only if he accepts the rules of the club? If the hon. Gentleman is making out a case that there is a different kind of club—if he is suggesting a semi-public arrangement—that means that the club has no rules. This is the point that he has to answer. Entry to these clubs must be on the basis that the person wishing to gain admittance will accept the rules that are laid down.

Mr. Alison: I do not dispute that it is right and proper that clubs should lay down rules for the internal conduct and behaviour of members, once they are members. This is not central to my main argument. What I am concerned about is the basis on which it is appropriate to discriminate between those seeking access to a club.
The Home Secretary said two things. He said that he means discrimination against potential applicants on the basis of their colour to be inadmissible. He says that it is no more logical to allow colour discrimination in clubs than it is to have it in trade union branches, schools or in housing accommodation. But he follows through the logic that must be present in any sane definition of a club as opposed to a school or trade union branch, namely that there must be a test of personal acceptability. The Government have not only stated in terms in the White Paper that this is an admissible test but the Minister of State in Committee said that the clause as drafted, the crucial provisions of Clause 25(2)(a) and (b) do not rule out a test of personal acceptability. I hope that the hon. Member for Tottenham (Mr. Atkinson) and others appreciate the significance of the test of personal acceptability because it is a charge of dynamite to what the Government are trying to do.
Let us say that the rules of the club require that an applicant shall have a proposer and seconder followed by a period in which the name of the applicant is placed before the club membership for consideration, followed by a third stage in which the proposer and seconder bring in the applicant and present him to a selection committee which votes on whether to accede to the application. Let us say that the rule of the club is that one black ball, one negative vote, can result in a rejection of that applicant. There is no need to explain why he was blackballed or by whom. The test of acceptability has been applied but no-one knows whether the char) has been blackballed because of his colour. It is impossible to discover the reason for it.
If members of the club are determined to exclude coloured members—and I imagine it is easy to do that in certain clubs, otherwise the legislation would not be necessary—the Bill will do nothing to make it easier for a coloured, black,

brown or white man to join a club where the test of acceptability is applied. That is the nonsense of the provision and it is contradictory.
It is not right that particular clubs in the North, which are really semi-pubs, should behave in that way. But they do discriminate and the Government are authorising them to continue to discriminate on the basis of colour.

Mr. John Watkinson: I accept everything which the hon. Member for Barkston Ash (Mr. Alison) has said but the point about the clause is that it prevents those who vet people who wish to join a club from making too explicit that they are excluding them on the ground of colour.

Mr. Alison: The hon. Member for Gloucestershire, West (Mr. Watkinson) has made a fair point. If the object of the legislation were to prevent overt rules of discrimination I would concede that, but that is not the purpose. We are changing the law because a coloured man, trying to join a club—the Preston Docks Club illustrates this—is not able to do so.

Mr. Bidwell: We discussed that at length in Committee but many hon. Members did not hear those exchanges. In club life the whole show can be upset by the attitude of a small minority. When the Select Committee visited factories an employer told us that the 1968 Act had helped in general terms by outlawing discrimination on the basis of ethnic origin or colour. In the same way the legislation could help in club life, because it is often a question of the minority tail wagging the dog, making life so unpleasant that coloured people will not join.
The hon. Gentleman gave the instance of the black and white balls. That applies more to the exclusive clubs. Of course there will be difficulties, but the Commission has discretion as to how it goes about its job. The clause will help the process of integration and racial harmony.

Mr. Alison: I take the hon. Gentleman's point that attitudes and the climate of opinion are crucial, but I reach the opposite conclusion to his. If we try to force a different climate of opinion upon people—particularly in an area so sensitive as private social clubs, and particularly where the rules say that not an


awkward minority but one anonymous blackballer can secure the non-election of coloured people—we shall encourage semi-public clubs to change their rules and the kind of election procedures that I have suggested might more frequently apply.
Overt discrimination in terms of general admissibility is unacceptable. No club should be able to say in terms "We will never admit Jewish or coloured members." I know of very few clubs that have any such explicit colour bar. I am happy that the legislation should disbar it, but I am not happy that, recognising that already such clubs carry out their discrimination covertly, we should make it admissible for them to continue to do so. That raises expectations in some people and frustrates others because they feel that they are being got at by the law, when in fact they are being allowed to get away with murder.
The Government have adopted the wrong approach in tying up club life with something much more akin to public services such as schools, trade union branches and so on—they gave the game away in the White Paper—yet recognising the inherent logic of what is a private social club. This is an illustration of the nonsense clauses in the Bill, and I hope that the House will throw it out.

Mr. Atkinson: I accept that good race relations are not determined by the amount of law on the statute book, just as good industrial relations are not determined in a court of law. The whole matter is about people coming together, about communities understanding each other, having a common purpose and being determined to share all that goes with the community. It is not a matter of using the courts to build communities. I accept that without qualification.
6.30 p.m.
The hon. Member for Barkston Ash (Mr. Alison) says that the clause has no purpose and will achieve nothing. That argument can be applied to those who seek to escape paying tax, but that does not mean that we do not need tax regulations. Someone has to lay down tax law.
The onus is upon the hon. Gentleman to make out a case to support his assertion that the clause should not appear in the Bill. It is not sufficient to say that

it has no purpose, will not serve a purpose or will not eliminate the problem. He should be making a case for the clause being likely to cause damage. Will it do any harm?

Mr. Alison: The hon. Gentleman has made a fair point. I think he will agree with his experience of tax that tax measures are brought forward only when there is a reasonable prospect that the tax can be collected. To put it crudely, all legislation must be policeable, otherwise there is no point in having it. This legislation is completely unpoliceable.

Mr. Atkinson: Every Government in the world, I think, has given up the idea of being able to collect tax efficiently from the self-employed. In the majority of cases—this is acknowledged throughout the world—efficient tax collection from the self-employed is not possible. It is also acknowledged throughout the world, I think, that where payment is made in cash, the policing of tax collection is not very efficient. I think that most countries in the world have given up. However, the hon. Gentleman must make a case to support the contention that on balance the clause will do more harm than good in its attempt to set out some basic rules.
The clause will prevent certain things happening—namely, some of the overt acts to which the hon. Gentleman has referred. Now he has to argue that the clause is dangerous. He must convince the House that by leaving the clause in the Bill we shall be adding to the explosive qualities to which he has referred. I do not think that that is the position. By setting out some rules I believe that we shall be doing no harm, although I admit that we shall not solve all the problems. The setting out of rules will not create democratic membership or the sort of club community that we wish to see, but it will do no harm. Therefore, on balance I believe that it is better to leave the clause in the Bill.
My hon. Friends want to hear good reasons for suggesting that the clause will do positive damage by remaining in the Bill. That is the real point. We can all say that it will not solve certain problems—of course it will not—but that is not the point. The point is that it will not do any damage.

Mr. Hugh Fraser: The hon. Member for Tottenham (Mr. Atkinson) made a reasonable intervention. However, the clause was considered at great length in Committee, and my hon. Friends tried to find possible adjustments to the clause which would make it more reasonable. I believe that we are trying to apply a legislative formula to an impossible situation that cannot be legislated for. That is the real problem.
I am sure it will be agreed in principle that if we want to harmonise race relations there should be miscegenation and that if we were to carry through such a process it would doubtless solve our race problem. But it is a totally absurd conception. De Gaulle described the problem as "Le metissage." Can anybody imagine anything more ludicrous than saying that there shall be miscegenation by order of the Home Secretary? That would be embarking on an absurd social experiment.
My hon. Friend the Member for Barkston Ash (Mr. Alison) was correct to say that the clause, as it stands, can have dangerous effects. Conservative clubs and Labour clubs are very different from other types of club. It was suggested in the White Paper that they are similar to public houses and places where services are provided for cash. But the clubs I have in mind consist of associations of people. Therefore, for any Government, whether right wing or left wing, to try to enforce rules on free associations of people seems to me, and I am sure to Members on all sides of the House, to be an absurd contradiction of the purposes of the laws of this country. It is for those clubs to draw up their rules and not for the Government to impose them. For the Government to seek to do so would be as absurd as to try to lay down miscegenation by Act of Parliament.
I believe that Clause 25 should be dropped from the Bill. It adds nothing to the situation because, as it stands, the clause will have no effect. With skill, every one of the provisions in the clause can be avoided.

Mr. Bidwell: I know of no rules that say "No Jew shall be admitted", or "No coloureds admitted to this club". Therefore, what will be the eventual

statutory effect of these provisions on club rules?

Mr. Fraser: The whole object of the provision is to apply to clubs and associations and it cannot affect club rules. However, it can affect the atmosphere of a club.

Mr. Bidwell: I thought that the right hon. Gentleman was seeking to lay emphasis on rules rather than on anything else.

Mr. Fraser: The rules are part of the framework of the club and they must be kept free.
I believe that Clause 25 will prove absurd and ineffective. The main objective of the Government is to have a situation where Indian clubs admit white people, and white people's clubs admit Indians. But these things are not achieved by trampling on what people believe are their personal rights by way of legislation. They are achieved by a proper association of ideas, values and interests.
I have belonged to multi-racial clubs, and they were multi-racial not because the law said so but because the members shared the same interests. To try to force the pace by an Act of Parliament is not only counter-productive, but patently dangerous.
I hope that the Government will think again and allow this clause to be withdrawn. If not, I hope that we shall press this matter to the strongest possible Division.

6.45 a.m.

Mr. Robert Boscawen: This is the first opportunity hon. Members who were not on the Standing Committee have had to discuss this important and sensitive clause. It is disgraceful that the affairs of the House should have been managed so badly that we are discussing it at 6.45 a.m. on a Friday. The Government are treating the House and people outside with contempt.
The Government are making a considerable mistake in introducing legislation in what is bound to be a very personal and sensitive area, irrespective of whether it is right to have race relations legislation. We would question whether it is right to introduce legislation in what is, in fact, an extension of individuals'


homes. That is the way in which large numbers of people regard their clubs.
I doubt whether this clause will have any effect. The test of personal acceptability will continue as it always has in the private club or the sports club. If that is so, then this clause will not make very much difference.
I implore the Government to think again. I do not accept what the hon. Member for Tottenham (Mr. Atkinson) said when he implied that the clause was not a danger to race relations in this country. A large number of people do not want to see the law interfering in their private arrangements—whom they have and are entitled to vote for in their own clubs. Up and down the country, irrespective of their politics, people like to feel that their own clubs are their own affair to manage in their own way, just as one feels that in one's own home one's family should be allowed to decide whom to invite in. There is nothing racist about that. It is a matter of plain common sense.
6.45 a.m.
By introducing this factor into a Bill about race relations the Government will gravely damage their chances of getting the Bill accepted in the way that I know they and my own Front Bench want it to be. It will build up a tremendous amount of ignorant feeling that the Government are legislating on whom shall be elected to clubs. People will not understand the nicety that they can still elect someone on the basis of personal acceptability, or that a coloured person can still be blackballed if he is regarded as unsuitable. They will see only what is written in the Press, that the Government are legislating to remove the freedom of individuals to choose their own personal friends who will come into what they regard as an extension of their homes.
I ask the hon. Members for Tottenham and Ealing, Acton (Mr. Bidwell), who I know both care deeply about these matters, to think again and to consider whether they are not damaging their own cause by the clause. Perhaps there are clubs in the North of England which discriminate against coloured people. I hope not. Perhaps certain sporting clubs do so. But far more could be done by persuading members that they should behave differently. Surely the political

parties can persuade the members of their political clubs to play the game. A great deal more can be done by behind the scenes action and persuasion than by the use of a great legislative bludgeon.
I hope that Labour Members will support us in the Lobby on this issue.

Mr. Budgen: I agree with my right hon. Friend the Member for Stafford and Stone (Mr. Fraser) that the extension of this legislation raises the whole question of what rôle the law should play in our society. Perhaps the most dangerous way in which we as legislators can behave is, when we disapprove of something or when we want to help a particular group, to resort immediately to law.
But surely there are two most important condition precedents to be met before we resort to law. First, there must be certainty. The speech of the right hon. Member for Down, South (Mr. Powell) on the first new clause was a good illustration of the need for certainty. Secondly, there must be public consent. Without that, the law cannot be enforced or enforceable. Perhaps the best illustration of this is the kind of argument used by hon. Members opposite about industrial relations. It is often argued that if the law seeks to interfere in relations between individual trade unionists or between trade unionists and employers, conflict will be created because this is an area in which the introduction of the law is inappropriate and where it would be unenforced and unenforceable. I do not agree. But if it is decided that this is the test to be applied, those who argue in that way are on the right lines.
There is nothing new in the exclusion of certain classes of people from private clubs. At the time when the great Edwardian financiers, many of whom were Jewish, were well-liked at the court, agriculture was going through a difficult period and there was considerable resentment and anti-Semitism from the landed interests in this country. That has now been largely forgotten because it was not morally defensible. It has been resolved by social political and religious pressures and not by legislation. Political and religious persuasion can be used in a declaratory way, but the Home Secretary's suggestion that the law can be


used in this way is mistaken. I do not believe that the evil against which this legislation is aimed is something which will respond to any sort of change in the law.
The Home Secretary said there are about 4,000 working men's clubs in this country with about 3¼ million members. They are the last refuge for many of our fellow citizens, not only from coloured immigration but from the irritations of families and jobs. We all have a place to go to when we are fed up with our wives, our children or anythting else. People can consort in these clubs with friends of their own choosing and it is sad that they are to be forced by legislation to open their doors.
I hope thtat in happier times, when the members are satisfied that the flow of immigration into this country has been strictly controlled and they are no longer being conned by this House with bland assurances that the flow of immigrants is being controlled when it is not, these clubs might choose voluntarily to open their doors. I do not want them forced to do so by legislation. If they are, a great deal of harm will be done.

Mr. Alison: My hon. Friend is wrong to say that clubs will be forced to open their doors. That is the point. They will not be so forced.

Mr. Budgen: I am grateful to my hon. Friend. The effect of the Bill will be to require them no longer to exercise any test which is in the nature of discrimination against any class or section of the community The effect of that will be to force them to open their doors. That is the objective of the legislation. I happen to believe that this legislation is neither enforceable nor likely to be enforced in that regard.
What will happen is that the indigenous population in whole areas will feel a strong sense of resentment. They will feel that resentment, unhappily, against the coloured community. If anything, this proposal will tend to reduce the harmony of future race relations. It will be a strong disadvantage to the coloured community.
There are those in the House who argue that the way in which race relations can be improved is partly through giving material advantages to the areas which

have been immigrant reception areas. I do not want to enter into that argument at all. However, it will be politically far more difficult to give extra resources to immigrant reception areas if there is an initial sense of resentment towards immigrants and coloured people as a consequence of this legislation being extended to clubs. The people who are paying for these material advantages to be sent to the reception areas will say that coloured people already have a privileged position in law, and they will ask why coloured people should be given extra funds from the taxpayers as a whole. Therefore, for those who want to improve race relations by way of giving some form of subsidy to these areas, this legislation will reduce their chances and make it politically more difficult.
In the longer term the real disadvantage will be the damage that will be done to the rule of law. What will happen is that we shall see increasingly people who seek to defy the law and to say that they wish to discriminate in respect of their private clubs. It will be proved very difficult to enforce the law against such people. I am in no way encouraging anyone to break the law. The fact is that people do break the law concerning race relations. People have broken the law, and people have got away with breaking the law. Some are becoming popular heroes as a result. It does no good to race relations. Worse, it brings the whole law into contempt.
By extending this legislation to an area in which there is no popular consent for such extension, there is a serious danger of damaging the rule of law. If we are to continue as a free society, the single most important thing that the House must do is to recognise the limits of legislation. Above all, we must recognise the right of our fellow citizens to do and say things of which many of us disapprove.

7 a.m.

Mr. Stokes: I declare an interest in the clause in that I am President of the West Midlands Conservative Clubs, of which there are over 400, having succeeded the right hon. Member for Down. South (Mr. Powell). The clubs play an important part in the life of our communities. We are, as Dr. Johnson said, a very clubbable people.
It is a monstrous invasion of privacy that a club, which to many members is an extension of their home, should have its rules to some extent overseen by the all-powerful State. Under the clause, clubs and societies and all associations of that kind of more than 24 members will not be completely free, as they were, to choose whom they wish to admit in accordance with the likes and dislikes of their club members, and to chose the sort of people whose company they find a congenial if their choice involves discrimination by colour, race, nationality or ethnic or national origin.
In many of the clubs only a fraction of the membership meets together at any one time. In practice we are dealing with small groups of people who will be denied freedom of recreation and relaxation in company with others of their choice. That is a denial of freedom of association, a right which is virtually meaningless unless it also includes freedom not to associate. Surely, an association is a free one only when it is mutually desired.
Earlier, I referred to the interference of the State in the way of life of the ordinary English men and women of which we have been so proud through the centuries. The clause is a denial of that freedom of association which has been a basic right in England at least since Saxon times.

Mr. Bidwell: What about Scotland?

Mr. Stokes: I speak of England because it is the country in which the large majority of immigrants, for climatic reasons, settle. I know much less of the result of immigration into the outer parts of the United Kingdom.
In my maddest moments I never dreamt that my right to choose whom I might have in my own club would to some extent be circumscribed by the State. As I said many hours ago, Big Brother is watching us. Big Brother is watching our clubs, and I fear that if the Government continue in office for much longer it will be only a matter of time before Big Brother will also be watching our homes.
Members of Parliament should never forget who sent them here. We are sent here not by The Guardian, the media, the Hampstead set or those who favour the

permissive society but by the ordinary, decent English men and women who, in spite of our failings, still look to us for their protection. If they cannot look here, where else can they look?
I believe that this clause in this awful Bill will be bitterly resented by many ordinary working English men and women. We know that the least effect it will have will be on the West End of London clubs, and no doubt the Home Secretary will notice that.

Sir Frederic Bennett: You will accept, I am sure, Mr. Deputy Speaker that I have sat in this Chamber more or less constantly since yesterday afternoon and have not troubled you with protracted observations at any stage. I have waited this long, and will wait until the end, because I am among those who put down the amendment to the motion for Third Reading, emphasising that, unlike some of my hon. Friends, I am not against the whole Bill in principle but that I am strongly against two particular parts of it, that dealing with clubs and that in regard to free speech, which we shall be discussing very much later.
I was delighted to hear what my hon. Friend the Member for Barkston Ash (Mr. Alison) said about the amendment, because he put his finger on the genuine objections of principle which those supporting the amendment feel so strongly. On all these controversial issues, one usually gets letters either for or against one's point of view. In this case, every letter and approach I have had, including from members of the coloured community, has deplored the idea that we should increase the racial tensions which already exist by pursuing this question of the clubs.
When one has unanimous support from all sections and all political parties, surely it is time to stop and think. My hon. Friend the Member for Barkston Ash made two points. First, he criticised the clause because it was going to be ineffective, as it will be, for the reasons he gave and which I will elaborate. There is not even any need for there to be a selection committee. All the rules of the club need say, both today and after the Bill becomes an Act, is exactly the same. They need simply bring in, if they have not already got one, a rule that to join one must have a proposer and seconder


and that one black ball will suffice to veto the entry. The only objective that will be achieved by the Bill in this respect will be that one must not put in the rules anything saying that a black ball will be cast in the event of a member of a certain race or community attempting to join. Except for that, the position will be precisely the same in the sense of the lack of effectiveness of this provision.
It might be argued that it is not a bad idea, if the Government want to, to put in a futile and ineffective clause. Perhaps one would not have stayed to this late hour if that were the only argument. Unfortunately, the clause will be not only ineffective but counter-productive, because it will represent to many people a direct threat or challenge to their club membership, which, as my hon. Friend the Member for Halesowen and Stourbridge (Mr. Stokes) has said, is an extension of the home and something about which they feel deeply.
The clause will also present a challenge to the provocateurs in our midst who will want to test this legislation and try to join clubs, not because they want to join but because they want to try to prove that they are excluded on racial grounds. That is why this provision will be counter-productive.
A short while ago I was in Canada, where there are no laws such as those we are trying to pass here. Most people would accept, however, that in Canadian society—forgetting certain slight French difficulties—there is a fairly liberal attitude towards racial problems.
I was taken to lunch in Toronto at an Italian club. It was such a good club that I asked my host about the qualifications for membership. He replied that in the first place one had to be Italian, and that nobody other than an Italian had a chance of getting into the club. He added that even if a non-Italian succeeded in getting a proposer and seconder, he would be blackballed. He went on to say that only Italians from his particular region of Italy were admitted.
Two days later I visited a Canadian-Polish savings association which did not accept deposits from any Canadian who was not a member of the local Polish community. If someone not in the local Polish community were to slip in, I was

told the association would not make any loans to him.
They have no laws about these things in Canada but effectively they have done exactly what the Home Secretary is trying, in so singularly futile a way, to achieve. I cannot imagine what the Home Secretary thinks he is getting out of this. All he will do is to put an amber signal before all the clubs in this country so that they will take steps to defy this legislation and find a way round it. This will happen everywhere.
It has been admitted everywhere that the test of personal acceptability will continue. All that will happen is that clubs in future will be very sure not only that just one black ball will suffice but that there will always be one black ball to cover the very point put forward in the Bill.
The Home Secretary, who has now come into the Chamber, will have achieved something totally ineffective. He may be proud to say "At least I have stopped clubs putting in their rules that they will not take anyone other than white aryans", but no such clubs exist. There are no notices to be torn down in clubs all over Britain. He will not achieve anything, if the Bill goes through in its present form, apart from bringing an awareness of racial differences to a new sphere of our social life.
We have not so far got to the point where legislation reaches even into the home, but we are coming dangerously close to it. Every time we take a legislative step to introduce the mere notion of race into our social life where it did not exist before, we do nothing but harm. Every time such an innovation is regarded as a challenge of a defensive nature by the whites, on the one hand, and a challenge, on the other hand, of a provocative nature by a minority of the coloured community who want to exploit the differences which we in this House are all seeking to resolve.
As I indicated at the beginning of my speech, I have not fought throughout the night on a whole series of amendments, nor have I spoken on them. Although my hon. Friends felt strongly, and in each case their arguments were well grounded, I did not feel that they were of an absolutely fundamental nature. Maybe I was wrong. But I feel that this clause is of


a definitely fundamental nature, and the debate we shall be having much later, on the curbing of free speech, is, I believe, equally fundamental.
If the Home Secretary wants the Bill to get through the House and to become an Act, and if he wants it to be respected afterwards, as I am sure he must, I ask him to acknowledge that it has been conclusively proved to him that this part of it will achieve absolutely nothing. I ask him graciously to yield that this clause should be removed from the Bill.

7.15 a.m.

Mr. Nicholas Winterton: It is a pity that we are debating this important amendment at this hour because the number of hon. Members in the Chamber at present does not reflect the massive interest that the Bill, and this clause in particular, have created throughout the United Kingdom.
I have had numerous letters from people objecting to the Government's intentions, and many of the critcisms which have been levelled by my constituents, and people who live outside my constituency who have written to me, have been touched upon by those hon. Members who have participated in this debate already.
It is interesting, regarding the Government's intention to prevent racial discrimination in clubs, that the Home Secretary and the Government are going to drive underground what has perhaps healthily been dealt with above ground, and quite openly, to date. That is a very unfortunate development.
In short, a number of clubs have stated quite openly, and quite publicly that they do not admit to membership people, immigrants, with a dark skin. Some people may like that and other people may not. It is purely a matter of choice. I do not believe that private clubs should be subject to Government dictation as to whom they should, or should not, accept into the membership of their particular club.
My hon. Friend the Member for Barkston Ash (Mr. Alison) dealt very well, and fully, with the various procedures of entry into clubs in this country. He admitted, quite rightly, that in most sporting clubs, ordinary football clubs, hockey clubs, cricket clubs, squash clubs,

tennis clubs and, to a lesser extent, golf clubs, membership is very open. As long as one is a reasonable, law-abiding citizen, with no awkward or difficult habits, and as long as one is able to pay the subscription, and perhaps where golf clubs are concerned, are of a certain standard, one will be admitted. Little, if any, racial discrimination has existed for a number of years. I do not wish to go back to what happened 10 or 15 years ago.
When we pass from sporting, leisure, and physical activity in clubs, to social clubs, the situation, I entirely agree, is very different. Under Clause 25, which we want to strike out of the Bill—I hope the House will decide to take that decision a little later—groups, clubs, societies, organisations of more than 24 members will no longer be free, if the Bill reaches the statute book, to choose whom to admit—I choose this phraseology quite deliberately—in accordance with the likes or dislikes of club members and the sort of people whose company they find congenial and pleasant, if their choice involves discrimination on any of the following grounds—we have heard these criteria put forward time and again in the debates we have had on this stage of the Bill—
colour, race, nationality or ethnic or national origins".
That, surely, is placing upon certain clubs restrictions and limitations which will be decidedly to the disadvantage of the members of that club.
I no longer need to declare an interest but for many years I was an affiliated member of the Club and Institute Union and I was a member of a number of working men's clubs, including a miner's welfare club, in which I had many hours of good companionship and pleasant entertainment. These clubs will be severely affected by this new legislation that the Government are putting through this House and hope to see on the statute book, with the Queen's Assent, perhaps not too many days or weeks from now.
But people opt, and choose, to become members of a particular club because of the facilities and the company that that club offers. I am sure that the Home Secretary and the Minister on the Treasury Bench are aware that many


immigrant organisations have in fact founded their own clubs for their own people which are as exclusive as any English or British clubs which have existed for many years.
I find it extraordinary that we should try to compel a club, by some strange procedure, and compulsion of Government, to take in a type of person which, perhaps, it does not wish to take in and which, no doubt, will spoil the atmosphere of that club for the members who have used it for many years.
There is no doubt that the Government are once again venturing into an area of difficulty and removing, or denying, personal freedom. This clause represents a denial of freedom of association, a right which is surely virtually meaningless unless it includes freedom not to associate with a particular person or a group of people. The Government are foisting irrelevant nonsensical legislation upon the House.
We have had massive representations made to us by people in all sectors of society—not just from some exclusive London-type sector but from working men throughout the country. There have even been representations from sporting clubs, although I do not believe that they will be much affected by the legislation since they have a very open membership anyway. I have been a member of numerous sporting clubs whose membership comprised people of practically every shade. I have been honoured to play hockey, rugby, football and many other games with such people.

Sir Frederic Bennett: I am impressed by what my hon. Friend says. Does he agree that one of the consequences of this legislation will be that if any member of the coloured fraternity is refused membership of one of these clubs—and there are many which have no racial bars at all—perhaps because he is not acceptable as a man, that person will attribute the rejection to his race and make the necessary, provocative reaction?

Mr. Winterton: That is entirely correct. We resent authoritarian legislation of this nature. It will reflect what has happened in parts of the United States. Clubs, schools and employers will be tempted to admit people purely because of their race—this has happened in the United States—in an attempt to fore-

stall allegations of discrimination. So, far from being colour-blind when admitting applicants, they will admit members of a particular racial group because of their race and not because of their suitability. That will totally destroy the present successful situation.
The Government are entering more and more into the everyday lives of ordinary people. They are trying to dictate how many children people will have, where the children are born, what houses they will have—through municipalisation— and where the children will be educated. If the NEB stretches its tentacles through the country, they will dictate where people work. No doubt eventually they will dictate how they spend their final days and they will all be cremated in a local authority crematorium.
It is unacceptable that the Government should dictate how people spend their leisure in working men's clubs. Thousands of their supporters must have made their objections known.
I can see no benefit to coloured people or immigrants in this provision. As my hon. Friends the Member for Torbay (Sir F. Bennett) said, representatives of immigrant communities have told him that they see no purpose in it, that it will upset rather than improve racial harmony. There is racial unrest in some parts of the country, including areas represented by Labour Members, but in many other areas immigrants live happily within the community. This is a further invasion of the rights of the indigenous people. I beg the Government to think again before it is too late.
I recently discussed current problems with an Asian association in my constituency. They see no purpose in this legislation. They know that race relations can be improved by education and evolution, not by legislation which will anger the indigenous population, who, wrongly but understandably, will take it out of the immigrant community.

7.30 a.m.

Mr. Ronald Bell: It is regrettable that this important amendment should come before the House at this time in the morning. The clubs issue affects tens of thousands of people who feel strongly about it. They will read that we discussed the matter at 7 o'clock in the morning at the end of an all-night sitting.
Perhaps they will read about the number of hon. Members in the Chamber and they will certainly not feel that they have been adequately represented by the elected Chamber of the British Parliament. They will be entitled to feel that way. I blame the Government. It was totally unreasonable to drive the Bill through the House. That does not worry me or my hon. Friends who all look as fresh as daisies, but perhaps not as pretty.
As hon. Members know, Mr. Speaker selected 20 groups of amendments for debate and by no stretch of the imagination would it have been possible to reach, for example, Clause 70, the freedom of speech clause, or the Third Reading at a reasonable hour. The matter which we are now discussing is not the most important of the amendments but it is the first which has such a wide public application and interest. Simple arithmetic should have told the Government that this would be the situation. It would be preposterous to imagine that 20 debates could be disposed of in half an hour each, but even if that had been so, 10 hours would have passed before we reached Third Reading. Since we began the Report stage at 4.25 p.m. the best we could have done would have been to be to reach Third Reading at 2.25 in the morning. In practice there was no way in which we could have reached Third Reading before breakfast time. This important debate on clubs and another on Clause 70 were bound to take place at an absurd hour. I know that the Minister is pretending not to pay any attention to what I am saying. He has paid no attention all night. Nothing has been conceded, no argument has been taken seriously—

Mr. Deputy Speaker: The hon. and learned Member for Beaconsfield (Mr. Bell) is not helping to facilitate matters. For the five minutes of his speech he has not got down to discussing the amendment. Surely he will get round to that in time.

Mr. Bell: That is an appropriate hors d'oeuvre to my remarks. The Minister will pay no attention—that has been apparent throughout the night. It is scandalous that we should be discussing the matter at this hour.
I want to answer the question posed by my hon. Friend the Member for Torbay (Sir F. Bennett). I had better answer it because the Government do not appear to be willing to do so. He asked why the clause is in the Bill. I can tell him. It was put in because the race relations industry agitated for it.
Look at the way in which it has developed. Undertakings were given by the Home Secretary during the passage of the 1968 Act that the wording did not cover clubs. The House of Lords found that it did not, but that did not stop the Race Relations Board from trying through the courts to make it include clubs. The board was determined by hook or by crook sooner or later to make this law apply to private clubs, because it is rabid. I have been searching through the night for the right word to describe the state of mind behind Ministers and all those who support the principle of the Bill. I think that "rabid" is about right. They hate any area of freedom in the matter of race relations—

Mr. Nicholas Winterton: Or anywhere else.

Mr. Bell: That is a legitimate point to make, but I am primarily concerned with race relations.
As soon as one becomes involved in a debate on any point, the supporters of the Bill ask "Do you approve of people treating other people differently on account of their race or colour? Are you suggesting that there should be clubs from which people can be excluded because of their race or colour?" They obviously expect the answer to be "No. That would be dreadful." They would say "We can't have that". But that is not the answer. The answer has been given by many hon. Members. Hon. Members do not like it, and they think that it is regrettable, but they do not think that there should be a law about it.
This is a distinction which does not seem to have got into the minds of the Government and their supporters. They simply say that if a thing is bad there should be a law forbidding it. This tramline approach works right through the provisions of the Bill. I think that there should be freedom. I should like the Minister of State to say why there should not be clubs which consciously confine their membership to white people.

Mr. Tebbit: Or black.

Mr. Bell: Of course. Why is it that this definition attracts this opprobrium? There are clubs which have all kinds of other fences around them. There are Caledonian clubs, which no one but a Scotsman is allowed to enter as a member. There could be Cymrudorian clubs for Welshmen. I do not see why there should not be Italian clubs and all kinds of other clubs.
What is it that suddenly happens when people want to have an indigenous Britons' club that makes it wrong? Why is there all this cluck about the colour of people's skins? It is not the colour of their skin that anybody worries about. There are a certain number of native British with fairly swarthy skins. The skin merely shows that the person comes from a different ethnic or climatic background, perhaps from the tropical regions. He probably has a different set of conventions and a different conversational background, a different approach to life. Other people are not hostile to him, but in one's club one wants to be at ease.
We do not go to our clubs when we are feeling full of brightness in spirit, at the end of an all-night sitting, and effervescent with energy. We go to our clubs at the end of each day—I have resigned from all mine as I never had time to go to them, being a Member of this place—for the purpose of relaxing. I believe that to be a view that is shared almost universally. We cannot have women as members of clubs because they make it difficult to relax. The trouble about women is that they notice everything. On going into a man's club one knows that nobody notices, for example, that one is wearing a red sock and a green sock, or that someone is sleeping with his mouth open. But a woman spots everything and tells everybody about it.

Mr. Gow: Does my hon. and learned Friend agree that there is no objection to admitting women to clubs provided that we have the right to discriminate as to the parts of the club that they are allowed to enter and the parts that they are not? I do not entirely share the views of my hon. and learned Friend. I happen to like women. am delighted that they should be members of clubs provided that we are able to discriminate

so that there are some parts that they are not allowed to enter.

Mr. Bell: I do not know why my hon. Friend should take such a self-righteous and almost possessive attitude about women. With respect, he is making my case on Clause 25. Of course I like women—we all like women.

Mr. Nicholas Winterton: Most of us like them.

Mr. Bell: But we do not want there to be nowhere where there are not women. There are occasions when women help men to relax, but there are occasions when their eyes are out on stalks and they notice everything around them. The trouble about women is that they are interested in people. Men are not and they never notice anything. These are differences that make life interesting.
It is the same with people from different backgrounds. They can stimulate, and there can be cross-fertilisation and all the other splendid words that stand for something, but that can be inappropriate when all that one wants to do is to sink back and relax and be at ease in one's inn. In these days that is not always possible, but up until now it has been possible to be at ease in one's club.
That is what the busy-bodies do not realise—[Interruption.] I cannot hear what the hon. Member for Ealing, Southall (Mr. Bidwell) is saying.

Mr. Bidwell: It would be hard luck if Othello were on.

Mr. Bell: I was about to say that it has been my experience over the years that it is not worth knowing what he is saying. He has given me useful corroboration of that fact.
The trouble is that the Labour busybodies eat, sleep and breathe politics. They want to control everything through political instruments. They cannot even leave lavatories alone. The ridiculous Sex Discrimination Bill contained a clause to the effect that we had to have separate lavatories. We had had them for years past and no one had ever fussed about them, but the busy-bodies have to regulate everything. Everything has to fit in with social policy and social engineering. It is politics the whole time. Politics pervade everything. We wish to omit Clause 25 because we think that there should


be some refuge from their ever-pervading politics.
Let me tell them what will happen with their stupid Clause 25. There is all this talk that we must have good race relations. In every argument about immigraion it is said that something must be stopped, diminished or controlled in the interests of good race relations. Things can have merits of their own, apart from race relations. The do-gooders cannot leave people alone to settle down within their own natural balance and to get on as they want to. Everything must be organised, nationalised "statutised".

Mr. Bidwell: Nonsense.

7.45 a.m.

Mr. Bell: The hon. Member for Ealing, Southall, sitting like a cross-legged Juno, makes sedentary comments, none of which I can hear.
I believe that these provisions will destroy the relations between people of different races in this country. No doubt when we vote on the clause, the Government will win. When the Division bells ring, in come the Government supporters —and they come in "cold", not having heard the debate. They will win the vote, and the country will hear about it. Their action will cause resentment among the white population.
It would be wrong to say that it will build up resentment against the coloured population. I think people will realise that that is a little unfair. It is not the coloured population that is pressing for these things. I know that the race relations industry, the Pratels of this world, are always pressing for everything, but members of the ordinary immigrant population do not want this. It is not fair to stir up resentment against them. There will be some resentment against them, but the main resentment will be against politicians and a law which is unacceptable to the general body of the British people.
There will never be good race relations again until we have got rid of this Bill, the 1968 Act, and the 1965 Act.

Mr. Nicholas Winterton: And the board.

Mr. Bell: Yes, the board and the commission. These are the meddlers who stimulate opposition wherever they go. Everybody hates them.
What will be the result of the enactment of Clause 25? There are some bloody-minded immigrants as well as bloody-minded natives, and they will try to force their way into some of these clubs. This has happened already. We all remember the case that went through the county court, to the Court of Appeal and then to the House of Lords. There will be any number of such cases when Clause 25 is part of the law of the land. It will breed resentment.
Eventually that resentment will take a political form. Labour Members must be careful about their reputation on the subject of immigration and race relations because they are being seen as enemies of the indigenous population. There are many Labour Members who do not say these things in the Chamber now, although one hears them say these things in conversation. They used to be bolder, but they are now frightened to come out with it. It came as a relief the other day when the ex-Chief Whip, the right hon. Member for Bermondsey (Mr. Mellish), took his courage in both hands and made a speech, the contents of which will be repugnant to hon. Members such as the hon. Member for Ealing, Southall and a good many other Labour Members.

Mr. Bidwell: That speech was disowned by the Labour Party and was deeply regretted.

Mr. Bell: I was absolutely right, and the hon. Gentleman has confirmed it.

Mr. Bidwell: Yes, complaints are still coming in from white people—from Socialists and friends of the Labour Party.

Mr. Bell: The figure for club membership in the Bill is 25. Can anyone think of a more ridiculous criterion? The Secretary of State has the power to change it, but knowing the Secretary of State, I expect he will bring the number down, instead of putting it up. The club with only 25 people is virtually an appendage of the family, and the idea that a club of that size is not free to choose its members is preposterous.
There are no clubs with a rule about this. I do not see why there should not be, because clubs can be delineated in any other way. But in fact, it does not happen. I have never known any club which had a rule of that nature. Maybe it is


just the fact that members do not elect coloured people.

Mr. Boscawen: After this Bill becomes an Act there will be a very great temptation for people to form small clubs of 24 members.

Mr. Bell: Yes, that is true. They may even adopt a federal structure, and have a whole lot of clubs of 24 members. Clubs are formed from groups of people who are basically like-minded and they just do not elect people who are not of that kind. This is called the test of personal acceptability. It goes on all the time, and legislation will not stop it, because that is what a club is all about.
I do not think that the Minister has heeded the fact that the club of which everyone is a member does not exist. Clubs are based on exclusivism, and that is achieved by excluding individual candidates they do not want. In that way they sort out the membership they want.
This farce has arisen because there are some big clubs and working men's clubs in Labour areas full of Labour voters where the people feel strongly that they do not want coloured members. This is very awkward and embarrassing for hon. Gentlemen opposite, so they say that these are not real clubs at all. They say that they are social facilities of the neighbourhood and they must be brought under control.
This legislation is all about working men's clubs. It is not aimed at the Athenaeum. I am not sure that anyone without a medical degree can get into the Athenaeum, so the situation does not arise. If there is a club which virtually anybody can join, people can be refused membership, but not on the grounds of colour, race or national origin.
That is the argument, but, oddly enough, when they came to draft the clause the Government put in the number 25. That is not much of a working men's club or an established social amenity in an area. It is a tiny group. But the argument is that a large club must allow anybody who wants to join it to do so. But that is false because—if I may have the Minister of State's attention, since he does not appear to be listening to me—these working men's clubs at which the Government are trying to strike are closely community clubs.

They could sometimes almost be described as works clubs. They have a very strong association with a place of work or the district. In a sense they are more exclusive, quite apart from the question of colour, than many clubs higher up the scale—say, in the West End. The members are all very much of a kind and they feel that strongly. They do not want this homogeneity interfered with.
The Minister of State says that it does not matter what they want, it is what the Government want that matters. We are determined, he says, to have a multiracial society in Britain, and to organise it. That is what lies behind this legislation. The Home Secretary at one point admitted that. He said that we had a multiracial society and that it was going to stay that way. But we do not have a multiracial society in Britain. We have a British population and a considerable number of immigrants—far more than we should ever have allowed in. They have gathered together in certain places and have become rather self-conscious communities. Their presence in that form is not acceptable to the British people. That does not constitute the multiracial society that Ministers like to pretend exists.
There are immigrant areas and white areas. There are clubs which cater largely for one area or the other. To force integration upon them, which is what the Government are trying to do in the interests of general political policy, will be just about as popular as bussing in the United States.
8.0 a.m.
The Minister of State can expect a whole lot of trouble from the folly of introducing the Bill. First, it will be one of the worst blows that race relations will ever have suffered in this country. Secondly, it will not work. Thirdly, it will be resented by the people at whom it is directed.
Fourthly, it will be an absolute farce. Apart from the fact that it will not work, it will lead to artificialities and difficulties which will exacerbate the race relations which it is supposed to improve.
One wonders what on earth the Government think they are doing with such a Bill. We shall never know. We shall get from them only the same old mumbo-jumbo we have heard seven or eight times


already tonight about the multiracial society and the obscenity of people distinguishing between other people on grounds of colour. It means nothing. It is part of the rabid, neurotic, hysterical attitude of the politicians of the Left—the Bonham-Carters of this world—who have dreamt up this folly in order to placate a sort of United Nations claque in the United Kingdom.
The Government will alienate the British people, particularly those who would normally be their warmest supporters. This will be a richly-deserved judgment upon them. It will be a swift and just judgment and, probably, an unrealised judgment. The Government are so obtuse, they do not even know what is happening. We have a punch-drunk Administration. They do not even know what they are going to do about the remaining stages of the Bill.
I hope that we shall press the amendment to a Division and win it, but I fear that the party Whips will crack on the Government side.

Mr. Tebbit: The party Whips opposite seem to have been badly cracked for some weeks now.

Mr. Bell: The collective Whippery is certainly a little disjointed, but I must not be drawn into debating that subject. The Whips' Office is one of these exclusive clubs. One black ball excludes. They want homogenity and will not have any unacceptable faces. The Whips should not complain about what working men's clubs want to do. It is exactly the same as they do themselves.
As a believer in liberty, I want people to be able to mix freely with their own kind of people. The long-established adjuncts of life in industrial areas should not be destroyed in the way proposed by the clause. I hope that my right hon. and hon. Friends will vote against this when the debate eventually ends.

Mr. Stanbrook: I fully support all that has been said by Opposition Members during the debate on this obnoxious clause. What amazes me is the fact that there are hundreds of thousands of people who will be affected by the proposal to extend to clubs something that is well known to have been very unpopular and to have caused much resentment in those

whom it affects at present. Hundreds of thousands of members of working men's clubs and institutes, Labour clubs, Liberal clubs, Conservative clubs and Unionist clubs and social clubs of all kinds, will be affected by the clause.
One wonders, therefore, whether the Government understand the resentment that this clause will provoke if it is passed into law and applied locally. Large numbers of the people concerned are supporters of the Government. They fondly imagine that a Labour Government are at least a Government with the interests of the British working class at heart. Those people will be very upset to discover that this is not, apparently, what animates the present Government but that it is rather some form of interference with their private lives.
To be fair about this legislation, if one tries to see it as an attempt to do something useful one must say that it is bound to be counter-productive in its attempt to improve race relations. Widespread resentment will be caused by this provision. The great essence of the problem is that clubs, in the way in which we know them and as they are appreciated and enjoyed by the people, depend upon a certain degree of exclusiveness. The degree of exclusiveness in a club is part of the whole concept of the club and its raison d'être. It is just because one can exclude people with whom one prefers not to associate when relaxing and simple enjoying oneself socially that clubs have grounds for existence.
My hon. and learned Friend the Member for Beaconsfield (Mr. Bell) spoke a lot about women. He did not seem to like women to be in his clubs. I do not share his feelings about that, but I understand them. It is right that he should be able to say that he likes the sort of club that does not allow many women.

Mr. Ronald Bell: My hon. Friend is wrong about the interrelationship of clubs and women in relation to my own case. First, I mean social clubs—not the kind with which one beats women. I was saying that there should be places, at any rate in men's clubs, where one could go knowing that women would not be there. That is because they are so interested in people. They watch everything. They see the colour of one's socks, and they notice whether or not one is asleep. They are observant. That is the real trouble.


I was not saying anything detrimental to women. I like them very much. However, there are times when one wants to be without them.

Mr. Stanbrook: I am grateful to my hon. and learned Friend.

Mr. Bidwell: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. You may recall that earlier you admonished my hon. Friend the Member for Tottenham (Mr. Atkinson) for reading a paper in the Chamber, although, as he explained, it was pertinent to the matter of debate. It appears that the right hon. Member for Down, South (Mr. Powell) is reading a novel and is not paying attention to this very interesting debate. Is that in order?

Mr. Deputy Speaker: I do not know what the right hon. Member for Down, South (Mr. Powell) is reading. It was he who raised the point of order concerning the hon. Member for Tottenham (Mr. Atkinson).

Mr. Powell: Further to that point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I was within the rules of order as I was reading a book from which I propose to quote during the debate entitled "Freedom and Reality" by Enoch Powell, available at all booksellers price 35p.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Any hon. Members wishing to place orders may do so now.

Mr. Stanbrook: I am grateful to my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Beaconsfield for pointing out that his reservations about women are based upon the principle of a private members' club, namely, that there shall be a place or places in which a member knows that he will have the sort of company he likes. That applies to all sorts and conditions of men, high, low, fat or thin, of whatever political persuasion they may be. There are times when we all prefer not to have the company of certain people.
There are rugger clubs in which a great deal of beer is consumed. There are cultural clubs in which members wish to exchange great thoughts. A member of a club does not wish to have social intercourse with people of an entirely different kind who will not contribute to his enjoyment. That is perfectly proper and fair. There is no compulsion on

anyone to be a member of a club. A person is free to join a club and there is no objection to the exclusive character of such clubs.
The Government are pushing ahead with their social engineering and saying that even this bastion of freedom and private life should fall before the application of the doctrinaire theory of a multiracial society. One of the most bizarre notions going around, which has been taken up by certain of my hon. Friends, is that Britain is now a multiracial society. It all depends what is meant by "a multiracial society". In the sense in which the phrase is used nowadays it has been true of Britain for hundreds of years. We have always had Africans, Asiatics and people born and bred in other parts of the world who are completely different from the indigenous people both racially and in other ways. Everyone agrees that the British people have always shown them tolerance and welcomed them, and there has been no real difficulty.
Although the number of people from abroad who live here may have increased, we have not reached the stage of becoming a multiracial society. If the total number of those whose origins are elsewhere came to 5 per cent. or even 10 per cent. of the total population, we should not be justified in calling this a multiracial society on that ground alone. In Fiji the proportions are 50:50 and in the Caribbean Islands substantial numbers of people originate from different parts of the world.
We are overwhelmingly English, Welsh, Scots and Irish. We have others, and they are welcome. One hopes that they enjoy their contacts with us and have equal opportunities for the enjoyment of the British way of life. But do not let us adjust the way of life of the 90 per cent. in order to accommodate the 10 per cent. Rather, let us tell the 10 per cent. "Live and enjoy our way of life but do not expect special treatment for you personally which does not apply to the rest of the population."
8.15 a.m.
Clubs are rather peculiar to the British people. It used to be said that when the Spanish went abroad, the first thing they did on arriving in their newly-conquered colony was to build a church; when the French went abroad, the first


thing they did, being realists, was to build a fort; the first thing the British did was to make a club. That is a perfectly characteristic story because clubs are a special characteristic of the British people wherever they are abroad. Many people resent the European clubs in Africa, but the reasons for those clubs are understandable—the members simply want, at some time in their daily life, perhaps to associate only with people of their own kind. The same applies to clubs in this country.
So this clause is directly contrary to human nature, and, indeed, the British human nature, and is therefore likely to engender terrific opposition and resistance. It is all such a shame because, as time has gone by, and as we have had opportunities of getting to know the strangers who have begun living with us, we have gradually, with them, come to arrive at a situation in which they understand us and we are beginning to understand them.
In the natural process of things, the chances are that there would not be the sort of discrimination against members of other races which we deplore. It would naturally phase out. The same applies to clubs. I recently asked the secretary of the Working Men's Clubs and Institutes Union what was his solution if he did not want the Bill to apply to his sort of club. What did he propose should be done about this sort of discrimination? He told me "the last thing we want is to legislate to compel those of our clubs practising it at the moment to change their ways because we believe that the normal processes of education, experience, maturity, and change of ideas which occur with clubs as they go along are likely to produce fewer and fewer clubs which will go in for this sort of discrimination." In any event, that is how it should be.
The same applies to the totally unnecessary Sex Discrimination Act, because in the natural way of things in this country, in the way we are developing socially, women are taking a greater and greater part in life and are therefore bound, rightly and justifiably, to have greater and greater opportunities of sharing in areas of life which were not previously open to them. We are setting up a terrific barrier in society by attempt-

ing to interfere with the Englishman's right to choose whom he shall have as his friend in his own club expressed as an extension of his home.
The nub of the prohibition in the clause is in subsection (2):
It is unlawful for an association … to discriminate against …
a person
by refusing or deliberately omitting to accept his application for membership.
That seems to me to mean that a club can refuse membership provided it has accepted an application for membership. I am reinforced in the thought that that is what it means by the similar wording in Clause 12(1)(b):
by refusing, or deliberately omitting to grant, his application for it".
If what was wanted was a prohibition on refusing membership, surely the wording used would be "grant his application for membership". But in fact the wording in Clause 25(2)(b) is
by refusing or deliberately omitting to accept his application for membership.
That is what is prohibited. But a person who applies for membership and has his application accepted is not necessarily thereby being given his membership. It may be quite sufficient, therefore, for a club to accept an application, to consider it in the usual way, and then to refuse membership to that person. It seems to me, from reading the wording of the Bill, that that would be quite legal, and if it is quite legal it drives a coach and horses through the entire Bill.

Mr. Tebbit: Together with Amendment No. 7 we are considering Amendment No. 40. Amendment No. 7 is to leave out Clause 25 and Amendment No. 40 is to leave out Clause 26. Therefore we have to look at both clauses. On so doing, we find that there are certain restrictions to the sorts of clubs or associations which these clauses cover.
Clause 25, in particular, is limited, in subsection (1), by the requirement, as hon. Members have reminded us, that such a club has to have
twenty-five or more members".
Subsection (1)(b) is related to Clause 20(1). If we refer back to Clause 20(1) we find ourselves in a jungle of a clause which refers to organisations which provide or sell goods, facilities or services to the public, in general terms.
We should bear those restrictions in mind, as we should also bear in mind the wording in Clause 25(1)(c), that
it is not an organisation to which section 11 applies.
In order to understand properly why the clause is objectionable, we should look back to Clause 11(1) of the Bill, which makes specific provisions for
an organisation of workers, an organisation of employers, or any other organisation whose members carry on a particular profession or trade for the purposes of which the organisation exists.
They are covered by rather different provisions from those of Clause 25. It is not my intention to consider the regulations which apply to trade unions, and associations of employers, but I think it is right that we should bear in mind that these clauses which we seek to remove from the Bill do not relate to the provisions which the Bill would enact which concern trade unions and employers' organisations. They are, in fact, almost solely concerned with what we would, in general terms, call social clubs.
Clause 26 also brings in some further restrictions and qualifications in regard to Clause 25 which are relatively straightforward, although there is some slight doubt in my mind, as I read them at this time of the morning, having been up all night, whether subsection (2) appears to have an unnecessary number of negatives in one sentence. We read:
In the case of an association within subsection (1), nothing in section 25
—that is the first negative—
shall render unlawful
—there is another negative—
any act not involving
—yet another negative—
discrimination on the ground of colour.
That is a bit of a dog's breakfast of a subsection and, perhaps, it is not inappropriate to have a dog's breakfast at 8.30 a.m. as we have had a bit of a dog's night anyway.
As I understand it—perhaps when he replies the Minister will confirm it—what Clause 26(2) says is that in this particular case one can discriminate at will on any grounds except those of colour. That is as I read the subsection through all those negatives. Perhaps when he replies he will make sure that I have read it

correctly because I would not want to be voting to take out a clause if I had totally misunderstood what the purpose of the clause was and what it meant either because of rather poor drafting or, perhaps, my lack of perception at this time of day.

Mr. Bidwell: Understanding.

Mr. Tebbit: Understanding. The hon. Member for Ealing, Southall (Mr. Bidwell) is pretty bright himself. He has realised that "understanding" and "perception" are just about the same sort of words and he shows how bright and full of sparkle he is. He may not often get to his feet but he does occasionally show that he is half awake. I must confess I prefer the hon. Gentleman half awake than fully awake.

Mr. Russell Kerr: Some speeches are worth getting to one's feet for.

Mr. Tebbit: As the hon. Gentleman says, some speeches are worth getting to one's feet for. I am longing for him to make a speech which it would have been worth his while getting to his feet to make. It will be a great day when the hon. Gentleman gets to his feet to make a speech instead of his usual barracking from a sedentary position.
I find myself in a great deal of agreement with what my hon. Friend the Member for Torbay (Sir F. Bennett) said in relation to this clause. He was quite right. There are obviously many loopholes in this legislation which will enable people to evade its intention. My hon. Friend suggested some, and there are many others. One could perhaps found clubs which are exclusively for persons who were in Her Majesty's Forces before 1940, or their direct descendants. I am sure they would be as near to pure white clubs, particularly if one signified the units as being units of the Home Command. One could apply all the provisions of the Bill and yet one would have achieved an absolutely Persil-white club. We might get muddled with Rhodesians and patrials and things like that, but no doubt the right hon. Member for Down, South (Mr. Powell) would disentangle us from that. As my hon. Friend the Member for Torbay said, the technique of one black ball disqualifying could work well.
8.30 a.m.
Neighbourhood clubs are and will be for a long time racially orientated. Such a club in Stamford Hill would be mainly Jewish. If one chose the right street in Hornsey, the members would be mostly Greek Cypriots. We are still an unintegrated society. No doubt in Southall one would find that the neighbourhood club was an Asian club. That might explain many of the views of the hon. Member for Southall.

Mr. Bidwell: In my constituencey of Ealing, Southall, with 70,000 voters, the majority of people are white.

Mr. Tebbit: I am grateful to the hon. Member. I am always willing to learn in these matters—

Mr. Bidwell: You did not know it.

Mr. Tebbit: What I know—

Mr. Bidwell: You did not know it.

Mr. Tebbit: The hon. Member is mildly tiresome. It is obvious that I was not aware of that piece of information and I acknowledge that. He does not have to sit there braying, "You did not know", to make his point.

Mr. Russell Kerr: He is right.

Mr. Tebbit: And he does not need the hon. Member for Feltham and Heston to join in the braying. If one donkey is bad, two donkeys are much worse, particularly at this time of the morning.
However, those of us who drive through the area we generally know as Southall know that there are parts of it where there are large concentrations of Asians. It would be natural if the neighbourhood clubs were Asian clubs. I am grateful to the hon. Member for Southall for the other snippets of information—

Mr. Bidwell: The hon. Member would get in because he looks like an Asian.

Mr. Tebbit: The hon. Member is kind enough to tell me that I would get in for his constituency because I look like an Asian. He will not tempt me to come down there, however nice it would be. I would rather that he stayed down there and I stayed in Chingford, which I know much better.
What bothers me is the ease with which it will be possible to circumvent the Bill. It is bad enough that we enact law affecting hundreds of thousands of people—the Bill will affect virtually everybody in the country—working in these conditions. We have been dragged through the night because of the Government's bad management of business and for most of the time there have been fewer hon. Members present in the Chamber than the qualifying minimum number of people who have to join a club to bring it within the ambit of Clause 25.
There could be resentment among people who see that this is bad law, unenforceable law, law to which they are deeply opposed, which has been enacted by shoving it through overnight in a series of debates in which very few hon. Members have taken part—almost none of them Labour Members—in which Ministers have not bothered to reply to the points made and in which very few hon. Members have voted in Divisions. That is the sort of law which brings the law into contempt.
We have enough bad law. There is enough contempt for the law already—[Interruption.] There is also enough contempt for the hon. Member for Felt-ham and Heston, who is still braying and barracking from a sedentary position. He only brings himself into more contempt the more he does it.
We should question whether we are wise to enact legislation in this way. We should wonder whether we are wise to enact this legislation. it is perhaps coincidental that in today's Sun—which I imagine is being read all over the country at about this time, at breakfast tables and on trains—apart from the extremely attractive part of the paper—and I will not deny a glance to the hon. Member for Feltham and Heston—there is a story headlined:
Romeo Troops Get the Boot at Club.
This is an interesting story because it relates to the way in which people are disqualified from belonging to clubs and the reasons for such action. As will be seen when I read the story, the Bill would strike very much against what happened in this case and against the sensible solution which was reached. The story is by-lined Victor Chapple, who I presume


is a member of the staff of the Sun and reads as follows:
'Amorous soldiers have been given their marching orders from a nightclub … to protect the pride of local lads.
For the free-spending Romeos from a nearby barracks have been wooing the girls too ardently.
They were accused yesterday of swarming around the girls ' like bees round a honey pot.'
Mr. Derek James, 30-year-old owner of the Hexagon Suite at Frome, Somerset, banned the army invaders to stop 'a nasty situation developing.'
He said: 'They have upset the local lads by trying to make it with their girlfriends. It got to the state where the soldiers were chatting up the girls the second their boyfriends left their side.'
The soldiers are on short courses at the School of Infantry at Battlesbury Barracks, Warminster, Wilts.
Insurance salesman Chris Davies, aged 20, said: 'I am pleased about the ban. The soldiers swarm around our girlfriends and what can you do when you are confronted by 10 determined squaddies?'
Receptionist Sally Davis, aged 23, said: 'They pester us to dance or have a drink and will not take 'No' for an answer.
Some unattached girls don't mind because the soldiers splash their money about.'

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Oscar Murton): Order. Perhaps it would be for the convenience of the House if the hon. Gentleman gave us the sequel to the story rather than a blow-by-blow account.

Mr. Boscawen: My hon. Friend is talking about a club in my constituency and dealing with a subject relevant to the point I was trying to make earlier. It deals with how worried people in clubs will be if this legislation is enacted and all sorts of people are allowed to join clubs.

Mr. Tebbit: You will be glad to know, Mr. Deputy Speaker, that the stories in the Sun are customarily quite short. If I could just read the comment of the Army spokesman you will see how the story relates to the Bill.
An army spokesman said: 'We are sorry that the apparent ardour of our men has upset anyone.
The courses are very tough and they want to relax a bit".
That is a straightforward little problem, the sort of thing which might occur

in a garrison town anywhere. The fortunate thing is that the men concerned were white—unless the paper has omitted to mention what might otherwise have given rise to the headline "Race Row in Club". Suppose, instead of white soldiers, they had been black men working on a nearby construction site.

Mr. Bidwell: How does the hon. Gentleman know that they were white? The story does not say that they were.

Mr. Tebbit: I know it does not. If the hon. Member for Southall listened more carefully he would have noticed the caveat in my comment. If he reads the Official Report tomorrow I am sure that he will find that the caveat is there and he will understand the point.
If the soldiers were black we would be discussing an even more interesting case. We could discuss whether they were all black or whether several of them were. We could discuss all the permutations because that would fascinate the hon. Member for Southall.

Mr. Anthony Kershaw: My hon. Friend the Member for Chingford (Mr. Tebbit) is passing too lightly from the issue. Will he consider the wording of Clause 26(1) and (2)? It is difficult to understand at this time in the morning, particularly when one has not heard the rest of the debate. I ask my hon. Friend to look at the last line of the clause where it talks of racial groups and colour. He has discussed the situation in which some soldiers might be white or black or mixed. Let us suppose that some were Irish, some black, some coffee and some English. Could my hon. Friend explain what the impact of the ban would be on those unfortunate soldiers?

Mr. Tebbit: I shall do my best to cover some of the permutations because they are clearly of interest to the hon. Member for Southall who is well known as an expert on these matters because he never ceases telling us about it.

Mr. Bidwell: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. For some time the hon. Member for Chingford (Mr. Tebbit) has been totally irrelevant to the matter in hand. Is there not a danger that with such irrelevant intervention, you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, are wasting your time and I am wasting my time?

Mr. Deputy Speaker: The hon. Member for Ealing, Southall (Mr. Bidwell) knows that the Chair will not allow the House to waste its time. The hon. Member for Chingford (Mr. Tebbit) is speaking to the amendment.

Mr. Tebbit: I am grateful to you, Mr. Deputy Speaker. There have been moments when I have come to the conclusion that the whole House is wasting its time upon the Bill. But it is the will of the House that we discuss it, and discuss it we must.
Let us deal with the hypothetical situation of a similar club near a building site on which work gangs of workmen who are predominantly coloured. If those gentlemen were, like the soldiers, keen to go to a club, have a few drinks and chat up the girls and they caused trouble with the regular clientele of the club, what would be the position of the club owner under the new legislation? He would say, "That is it chaps. I am banning you from my club". Then the vast machinery of the Race Relations Act would come into play, the machinery of the race establishment would be set in motion, people would make investigations, statements would be taken, complaints made—many behind closed doors and many on hearsay evidence, because the proper proceedings of the law are not required. The unfortunate owner of the club might find himself condemned without being able to examine those who brought evidence against him. He might find that all manner of occupations were potentially banned to him because under the provisions of the Bill evidence would have been given which might have led someone to the conclusion that it was possible that he had discriminated on grounds of race.
8.45 a.m.
Why should we impose all that burden upon an innocent man, innocently doing the good service to his customers and the people in his area that the gentleman who owned the club did in the case reported in the newspapers this morning? We need not complicate the matter to the extent of the hypothetical case where the persons concerned are building workers. Suppose it were a club in a predominantly coloured area of a city—perhaps Wolverhampton. Imagine that the club was frequented mainly and perhaps exclusively by coloured people. The chaps are there

quietly having a drink with their girl friends when the bunch of soldiers enters, in the words in the Sun, to
swarm around our girl friends and what can you do when you are confronted by 10 determined squaddies?".
Imagine a predominantly black club with a bunch of white soldiers chatting up the girls and spending money freely. What would be more natural than that the people whose club it was would say "Get out"? Then the whole machinery would be wound up in reverse and those nasty creatures that come out of the woodwork whenever that sort of incident occurs—the black ones or the white ones—would be at work straight away. A great issue would be made of it.
Yet that is the sort of incident that has happened for hundreds of years, and probably thoustands, all over the world. No doubt there were complaints about the activities of the Roman soldiers in the cities of Britain nearly 2,000 years ago, and no doubt the same sort of thing was said. Thank God at least the Romans had the sense not to set up a race relations industry to deal with it! We, mugs that we are, are legislating not to solve a problem but to create problems.
Who will be caught in this ghastly machinery? It will not be the clever people. There will not be many prosecutions brought against the clubs in Holland Park round the Home Secretary's way. They will all be advised by the smart lawyers how to stay out of trouble. The innocent and not very clever ordinary folk who do not know much law, and do not think much of it when they get to know about it if it is law like this, will be caught.
Those who are caught will be mainly Labour Members' voters. If they have no thought for anything else, if they have no worthier thought, I wish that Labour Members would think whether it is in their long-term electoral interest to promote such daft legislation, which is against the wishes of the great majority of people.
I shall not go through all the other possible permutations of events which might have occurred under circumstances slightly different from those outlined in the Sun this morning. But I find myself asking "Does it really matter if we have our own exclusive clubs, clubs which would be outlawed by the intent, if not


the effect of this wretched, squalid clause?"
Why is it assumed that there is a great mass of black people who want to join clubs that are now exclusive to white people, and that there is a great mass of white people who cannot wait to join clubs that are exclusive to brown, yellow or black people? Why do we have to assume that everyone wants to push themselves in where they are not welcome? Perhaps Labour Members are so used to pushing in where they are not welcome that they assume that everybody else must want to do so. If they cannot have VAT inspectors going into innocent people's houses at two o'clock in the morning to turn their homes upside down and interrogate the family, or some poor unfortunate individual, they are busy legislating as they insist that there are those who want to invade other people's clubs.
I do not believe that people want to invade clubs. Does my hon. Friend the Member for Torbay (Sir F. Bennett) want to join a club whose members do not want him? I do not think so. Does the hon. Member for Feltham and Heston have some burning desire to join a club where people do not want him? I doubt it very much.
Why do we assume that outside this place there are thousands of people whose one great desire in life is to join a club and muck it up for those who are already members? It just does not make sense. As the country has evolved it has evolved clubs and institutions to suit everyone who lives here.

Mr. Bidwell: I must pop out of the Chamber for a cup of tea. I was hoping to hear a fresh voice, but as there appears to be no prospect of that I am afraid I shall have to leave.

Mr. Tebbit: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his politeness. He need not hurry back. I can tell him that he has time for breakfast. He can then return to hear my hon. Friends discussing these matters from their own angle and from their own knowledge.
Over the years clubs, pubs and other organisations have evolved to suit everyone. There are clubs with half a dozen members and clubs with thousands of members. There are clubs for those who

want to play cricket, for those who want to watch cricket and for those who want to drink beer. Whatever interest a person may have, there seems to be a club for him. I am sure that many good and attractive clubs that are popular with their members have memberships composed of all races. I am sure that they are happy and that there are no complaints. They do not want to keep anyone out. They welcome those whom they like and with whom they get on well. What is it that is so sinful about the present arrangement? Where are all the complaints? What is going on in the country that necessitates the devotion of so much effort in order to legislate for something of such little import?
Every Thursday during business questions we hear hon. Members from both sides of the House pleading with the Leader of the House to legislate about all manner of matters that they consider vital. The Leader of the House always agrees that such matters are vital, but always says that we do not have time to legislate.

Mr. Goodhew: Is it not an extraordinary coincidence that just before the Whitsun Recess the Government were anxiously introducing legislation to withhold the rights of petitioners to petition against the Aircraft and Shipbuilding Industries Bill, and we were being told of the vital need to withdraw their right to petition as jobs would be lost in the shipbuilding industry if something was not done quickly, and we now find that we have been here all night debating race relations when the Government have made no move to debate the Aircraft and Shipbuilding Industries Bill, which they said before Whitsun was vital—

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Bryant Godman Irvine): Order. The hon. Member for St. Albans (Mr. Goodhew) is going very wide of this amendment.

Mr. Tebbit: Indeed, and he is being excessively unkind to Her Majesty's Government. I would not be as harsh as he was. Indeed, he was unconstructive and excessively critical. The Government at the time said that they wanted the Aircraft and Shipbuilding Industries Bill to save jobs. But this Bill does better than that. It creates jobs, and will create a


whole new industry. It will enlarge the race relations industry, the fastest growing industry in the country. The Bill will create jobs for race relations men, lawyers, probation officers, and certainly for the prison officers who will be needed to staff the prisons to look after the people who may find themselves there following the noxious provisions of this Bill. Therefore, it will be jobs for all those people—in fact, jobs for the boys.
Now we know how the Government propose to work the economic miracle. We shall be the country with the largest race relations industry in the world. Tourists will flock here to see how it all works. There will be conferences held in London at the best hotels. They will go to the best clubs—probably the well-discriminated clubs, the sort of clubs to which people in the Cabinet belong, but to which ordinary people cannot afford to go. It will be a boon to the balance of payments. We shall end up with the largest race relations industry, and with probably the worst race relations in the world as a result of it.
However, it will at least mean that we shall need to employ more policemen to keep order on the streets because more people will be smashing windows. The shutters will have to go up against the bully boys because of battles over whether a club is discriminating on racial or nonracial grounds.
There are many instances where it would be reasonable to discriminate on what would probably be held to be grounds of race or religion. For example, every weekend I drive from Central London to my constituency and I pass through an area of London called Hackney Down, known as a predominantly immigrant area. In the playing fields on either side of the road, cricket games take place at this time of the year. I shall not refer unduly to our record against the West Indies, but we must admit that the West Indians are extremely good at playing cricket. They approach the game with extraordinary enthusiasm. However, as one looks at these teams playing, one is hard put to it to see one white man playing in any team. Therefore, it is obviously difficult for a white man living in that area to participate in those games. In those circumstances it is not unnatural perhaps for some of the men

to get together and say "That has gone too far" and to decide to start their own club and perhaps to play in a lower league in cricket. Is an inspector then to be set on that cricket side to tell them to "Stop. You have not the statutory number of coloured people in your club."? They say that they are not good enough to get selected in the West Indian teams, and once again resentment is fuelled up, and the idiocy of this legislation is portrayed. At the moment there is no problem, so why should we legislate to create one. I would not want to force myself into a club or group of people who did not want me to join. I deeply resent legislation which would force other people on me in my club.

9.0 a.m.

Mr. Stokes: Perhaps my hon. Friend recalls the words of Groucho Marx who said:
If a club is worth belonging to, I am not good enough to join.

Mr. Tebbit: That would not be anything which would apply to me. It is basically wrong to have to require anyone to excuse himself and give reasons to a bunch of bureaucrats why he should or should not admit someone to his club. I am more optimistic about British society than those who drafted this Bill. I do not believe that the future depends on forcing one group to allow another to join its club against its will. I rely on the common sense of the people to form their own clubs and enjoy them in the company of people who want to belong and who are acceptable to the existing members.
I hope that when we vote on this amendment late this afternoon, my hon. Friends will join me and cut this clause out of the Bill.

Mr. John: I have waited for a considerable while before speaking so that I should have the advantage of listening to hon. Members opposite. I would point out that this subject has been debated for a considerable time. It was also debated in Committee for a considerable time, and there was a Division. In addition, this issue formed the central part of the debate on Second Reading, so no one is on legitimate ground in complaining about the amount of time we have devoted to this subject.
In introducing the move to excise this clause from the Bill, the hon. Member for Barkston Ash (Mr. Alison) said that the clause would be ineffective. But his remedy for ineffectiveness was to do nothing at all about it. What the Government propose is enshrined in Clause 25, and it is open for everyone to see. At the end of the debate on this issue I hope that my hon. Friends will oppose the Opposition in seeking to cut it out of the Bill.
The Government have said that there should be a test of genuine personal acceptability. I emphasise that point, because it is not right to discriminate on racial grounds. It must be genuine personal acceptability, and no one should be lumped into a category, because that is an offensive way of dealing with these matters. Of course there are persons who have personal characteristics which make them unacceptable as members of a club, but I do not believe that one can or should categorise them.

Mr. Ronald Bell: If someone is to be rejected from membership of a club, is it not much more preferable for him to be rejected on some group basis than to be rejected for his personal acceptability?

Mr. John: I would say not, for the simple reason that a man cannot change the colour of his skin but he can do something about the personal habits and characteristics which caused him to be excluded.
The hon. Member for Barkston Ash said that the test of personal acceptability was a difficult one. But that is exactly what the courts had to decide in the cases of Charter and the Preston dockers when they had to decide which clubs had carried out the genuine test of personal acceptability and which had not. The whole groundwork of the decision was made on that basis. The difficulties of proving it are matters of evidence and not of law, but one can imagine circumstances in which it becomes apparent that the test of personal acceptability is operated on the basis of discrimination on racial grounds.
Hon. Members suggested that the club was an extension of the home and that it was wrong that the law should impinge in this way upon that extension. That view is based largely upon a mis-

conception of the extent to which the Government regulate the running of clubs. There is a text book on club law by Joslyn and Alexander which runs to 220 pages. The 1964 licensing legislation regulates not only the way in which clubs must be governed, but, for example, the time which must elapse between a person being accepted for membership and exercising the rights of membership. If hon. Members still believe that there is an analogy between the home and the club, I should tell them that there is a danger in extending that too far.
We on the Government side believe in good race relations and racial equality. We believe that people may differ as between person and person but that they should not be judged as between colour and colour, and that is the basis upon which we have framed this legislation.
Several hon. Members mentioned the figure of 25 in Clause 25 and suggested that the coincidence of the two figures might be the reason for it. I can tell them that 25 is the minimum number of members under the licensing law whom a club is permitted if it is to sell intoxicating liquor. This is therefore a well-known category of club.
Hon. Members suggested that we were trying to force the pace on the cases of Charter and the Preston dockers because people were excluded because of their colour, race or ethnic or national origins. It is suggested that we therefore covered up the decision of the House of Lords which had a material change for the basis of the law as it was then understood. If hon. Members are saying that everyone understood that that was the law, I must tell them that the Court of Appeal, in coming to a contrary conclusion to the House of Lords, and with the assistance of distinguished lawyers, did not find it as easy as some hon. Members to say with clarity that that was so. Even though clubs were held to be outside the 1968 Act, they were covered when they offered services to the public. For example, many clubs hire out their premises for wedding receptions and the like. If they discriminate in those circumstances, they are guilty of a breach of the law.
The hon. Member for Orpington (Mr. Stanbrook) asked about the relationship between the wording of Clause 25 and Clause 12. This was a problem analysed


in Committee in some depth. I gave further thought to it and communicated with members of the Committee. We are satisfied that the acceptance of an application for membership is an admission to membership. We do not think there is a lacuna in the clause.
The hon. Member for Chingford (Mr. Tebbit) asked about ethnic clubs. He recognised the very careful way in which the genuineness of such clubs has to be gauged. Clause 26(2) will apply to a genuine club.

Mr. Tebbit: Can the Minister of State say in nice clear words, without using any negatives, how he reads the meaning of subsection (2)? Does it mean, as I think, that clubs can discriminate at will, except on grounds of colour?

Mr. John: Subsection (1) secures that where an associaion has as its main objective to enable persons of a particular racial group, defined otherwise than by reference to colour, to have the benefits of membership, as long as it does not exclude on grounds of colour, it can exclude on other grounds. For instance a Polish club could exclude people who were not Poles, but could not exclude anyone on grounds of colour.

Mr. Tebbit: Is the Minister saying that one could have an Anglo-Saxon club?

Mr. John: I am not sure whether Anglo-Saxon would be regarded as a particular racial group within the meaning of the Act. Anglo-Saxon is a fairly indefinite term.

9.15 a.m.

Mr. Goodhew: Does that mean that a club for Pakistanis as an ethnic group would be allowed under the clause? If it were restricted to Pakistanis only, it would be keeping out white men who lived in the area. Is that not standing the whole thing on its head? Is it not the sort of thing that will give people the impression that one is constantly being told that people have—that we are discriminating in favour of immigrants in these cases rather than against them? If a Pakistani man joined a club of white men, we should be told that that was allowed on the ground of colour, but in this case, if it concerns a club for

Pakistanis, one is told that it has nothing to do with colour but is a question of race. That is playing with words.

Mr. John: The hon. Gentleman has not listened to the stringent test laid down in Clause 26(1) as to the way in which the genuineness of the club and its purpose is to be ascertained.

Mr. Powell: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Mr. John: I should prefer to pass on from that point. I have tried to help the House as much as possible. I have not been reluctant to give way to the right hon. Gentleman earlier. Unless he wants to make a brief point, I should prefer to move on.

Mr. Powell: I shall try to make it short. The hon. Gentleman has been extremely patient. I am sure that he will recognise the importance of this point.
I am reading the definition of "racial group", as defined in Clause 3, as
colour, race, nationality or ethnic or national origins".
For the purposes of Clause 26, we obviously forget the first of those words—colour. I want to put to the Minister of State a very practical question. Does an English club qualify? "English" is not a nationality. The nationality might be "British". The nationality might be "United Kingdom Islands and Colonies". Those are the two nationality definitions.
The Minister of State will appreciate the importance and the great seriousness of my question, because obviously a West Indian, naturalised or born in this country, although being a member of a West Indian racial group, arguably might nevertheless, by nationality, be not English but United Kingdom and Colonies or British. I am sure that the Minister of State will see that that is not merely spinning out possibilities for the sake of argument but is the essential practicality of the matter.

Mr. John: I think that I can answer the right hon. Gentleman by making this point. "English" relates to national origin and not to colour. This is well catered for in the Bill.
The kernel is that nothing new has been added to debates that we have had previously. There is the reiteration by Opposition Members of exactly the


same points as they made on Second Reading. The Government believe that it is wrong on racial grounds to discriminate against a person in his admission to an unincorporated association—which is the grandiose way in which this is put. We believe that the test of personal acceptability should be exactly what it says—a test that differentiates as between one person and another. We totally reject any categorisation and any exclusion of a person because he happens to belong to a particular category. We do not believe that that is a true test of personal acceptability. We do not believe that it is a right test for clubs in this country to adopt.
Therefore, I hope that my right hon. and hon. Friends will defeat the attempt to take this clause out of the Bill.

Mr. Whitelaw: I have never understood the rules about declaring an interest. However, lest someone should attack me later, I had better admit that I am a past captain of the Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St. Andrews—which my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Beaconsfield (Mr. Bell) will be glad to know does not admit women, never has, and is never likely to admit them. I am the president of several golf clubs and an honorory member of others, and I am a member of a golf club in America —which is fortunately outside the scope of the Bill; I suspect that its practices would not conform to it.
My feelings about the clause, always fairly hostile, have become more hostile. My hon. and learned Friend the Member for Beaconsfield wondered why the clause was put in the Bill when it was not in the 1968 Act. The Government made a grave error in allowing themselves to be pushed into putting the clause in the Bill because of the House of Lords ruling on the Preston docker's club. That is a mistake.
The clause as it stands will not do what the Government think it will do. It will arouse expectations which will not be met. I want to show why I believe the clause is wrong and why I believe that there is a perfectly good alternative which the Government should have taken, as I said on Second Reading and in Committee.
My reason for believing that the clause will not work stems from the cogent

argument advanced by my hon. Friend the Member for Barkston Ash (Mr. Alison). The Minister of State always comes back to the question of personal acceptability, and that is at the root of why the clause cannot work.
I have here the rules of a Conservative club—I imagine that the rules of Labour clubs are much the same. One rule states:
Having considered the application and interviewed the applicants and their candidate, the committee should vote, and by a method which would not disclose the way in which any member voted.
The committee votes, and someone decides on a test of personal acceptability that the candidate is not suitable. The candidate might be coloured, but he might be adjudged unsuitable on the test of personal acceptability. Who can prove what happened in the committee? Who can prove why the person who voted against the candidate did so? A member of a club is surely entitled to decide whether a candidate is a suitable person to belong to his club, and it is not always desirable to say why.
I said in Committee that I would not be prepared to accept—in fact, I would seek to block—the application to be a member of my golf club of someone whom I knew to be habitually good with his feet in moving his ball from the thick rough into a suitable lie thereby being able to play it more easily. I would not wish to blacken that man's name by saying why I was not prepared to accept him, but I should be within my rights in saying that I did not think he was a suitable person to be a member of the club. I cannot see how the test of personal acceptability, irrespective of colour or anything else, can work.
My fear is that the clause, because of the loophole of personal acceptability, will build up expectations which cannot be met. People will believe that it will be effective, but it cannot be effective.
My hon. Friend the Member for Torbay (Sir F. Bennett) and others put forward reasons why the clause will not work, and, indeed, will be positively dangerous because it will encourage provocateurs and would-be martyrs who want to make trouble. We all know that there are such people. The hon. Member for Tottenham (Mr. Atkinson) asked what harm the clause would do, even if we


thought it would not do any good. My answer is that it could do considerable harm because there are dangers of martyrs and provocateurs, and they are real dangers.
What can be done instead? I believe that over the years in the clubs of all kinds there has been a steady erosion of the idea of racial discrimination. I remind the House that there are many immigrant clubs and I do not see how the clause can bite on that situation. But in the main, in the working men's, Conservative, Labour, and sporting clubs the idea of colour discrimination in membership is rapidly dying. I do not believe that it is now practised on any wide scale, and I am certain that our objective would be achieved better by encouragement and persuasion.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Stafford and Stone (Mr. Fraser) said "do not force the pace"; my hon. Friend the Member for Wells (Mr. Boscawen) said "take behind-the-scenes action"; my hon. Friend the Member for Wolver-hampton, South-West (Mr. Budgen) said "let it gradually dissolve by social pres-

Division No 229]
AYES
[9.29 a.m.


Alison, Michael
Goodhart, Philip
Sainsbury, Tim


Atkins, Rt Hon H. (Spelthorne)
Goodhew, Victor
Stokes, John


Bell, Ronald
Hall-Davis, A. G. F.
Tebbit, Norman


Bennett, Sir Frederic (Torbay)
Hannam, John
Viggers, Peter


Biffen, John
Mayhew, Patrick
Whitelaw, Rt Hon William


Boscawen, Hon Robert
Moate, Roger
Winterton, Nicholas


Bulmer, Esmond
Morrison, Charles (Devizes)



Dean, Paul (N Somerset)
Page, John (Harrow West)
TELLERS FOR THE AYES


Fletcher, Alex (Edinburgh N)
Powell, Rt Hon J. Enoch
Mr. John Corrie and


Fietcher-Cooke, Charles
Rossi, Hugh (Hornsey)
Mr. Spencer Le Marchant.




NOES


Atkinson, Norman
Harrison, Walter (Wakefield)
Robinson, Geoffrey


Bates, Alf
Hayman, Mrs Helene
Roderick, Caerwyn


Bean, R. E.
Hooley, Frank
Rodgers, William (Stockton)


Bidwell, Sydney
Jenkins, Hugh (Putney)
Short, Mrs Renée (Wolv NE)


Blenkinsop, Arthur
Jenkins, Rt Hon Roy (Stechford)
Silkin, Rt Hon S. C. (Dulwich)


Booth, Rt Hon Albert
John, Brynmor
Skinner, Dennis


Callaghan, Jim (Middleton &amp; P)
Johnston, Russell (Inverness)
Snape, Peter


Carter-Jones, Lewis
Judd, Frank
Spearing, Nigel


Cocks, Michael (Bristol S)
Kerr, Russell
Stallard, A. W.


Coleman, Donald
Latham, Arthur (Paddington)
Stoddart, David


Cook, Robin F. (Edin C)
Lipton, Marcus
Summerskill, Hon Dr Shirley


Corbett, Robin
Lyons, Edward (Bradford W)
Thomas, Ron (Bristol NW)


Cox, Thomas (Tooting)
Mackenzie, Gregor
Tomlinson, John


Crowther, Stan (Rotherham)
Madden, Max
Walker, Harold (Doncaster)


Cryer, Bob
Miller, Mrs Millie (Ilford N)
Walker, Terry (Kingswood)


Dormand, J. D.
Moonman, Eric
Ward, Michael


Eadie, Alex
Morris, Alfred (Wythenshawe)
Watkinson, John


Ellis, John (Brigg &amp; Scun)
Newens, Stanley
White, Frank R. (Bury)


Flannery, Martin
O'Halloran, Michael
Wise, Mrs Audrey


Fletcher, Alex (Edinburgh N)
Palmer, Arthur
Wrigglesworth, Ian


Foot, Rt Hon Michael
Pavitt, Laurie
Young, David (Bolton E)


George, Bruce
Pendry, Tom



Grant, John (Islington C)
Price, C. (Lewisham W)
TELLERS FOR THE NOES:


Grocott, Bruce
Radice, Giles
Mr. James Tinn and


Hamilton, James (Bothwell)
Rees, Rt Hon Merlyn (Leeds S)
Mr. Ted Graham.

Question accordingly negatived.

sures". I believe that all three ways constitute the method by which to erode choice of membership by colour.

I said on Second Reading and in Committee, and repeat it strongly, that the best way forward is on those three grounds. Because of the personal acceptability aspect set out by my hon. Friend the Member for Barkston Ash, I do not believe that the clause will meet the objective of the Government. I believe that it is likely to be used by provocateurs and others who will make trouble, and will do positive damage.

The best way to bring about the best of race relations in clubs is pressure of public opinion and by action behind the scenes, and not to force the pace. That will achieve the objective, and I am sorry that the Government have decided to legislate and to abandon the course of persuasion and social pressure, which would have been far better. It is for all these reasons that I advise my right hon. and hon. Friends to vote to remove the provision from the Bill.

Question put, That the amendment he made:—

The House divided: Ayes 26, Noes 71.

Clause 43

ESTABLISHMENT AND DUTIES OF COMMISSION

Mr. Alison: Mr. Alison: I beg to move Amendment No. 13, in page 26, line 7, leave out 'Commission for Racial Equality' and insert 'Equal Rights Commission'.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: With this we may take the following amendments:

No. 14, in line 7, leave out 'Commission for Racial Equality' and insert 'Equal Status Commission'.

No. 15, in line 7, leave out 'Racial' and insert 'Race'.

Mr. Alison: In paragraph 27 of the Select Committee on Race Relations and Immigration Report, dated 1st July 1975, the Select Committee recommended:
…that the Race Relations Board and the Community Relations Commission should be merged in a single agency to be known as the Equal Rights Commission.
The Report went on:
After considering several alternatives, we believe that the new agency should be so named to emphasise that the Commission will be a new institution and also because we feel it will now be appropriate and helpful to discontinue the reference to race relations.
I should like to underline that important point, that if possible we should devise a title for the new Commission which does not include the word "race", since that produces all the instinctive and inhibiting reactions that the whole sphere of race relations tends to generate.
It will be much better for a commission with a sensitive strategic rôle not devoid of the necessity to probe and investigate, formally and informally, not to have a title including that pejorative word. After all, such words as "racist", "racialist" and "race" have been bandied about in the Chamber.
The conference organised by the Community Relations Commission favoured what the Select Committee preferred, for similar reasons—the title Equal Rights Commission, which implies the equal rights objectives of the Bill. The Government view apparently is that "Race Relations" is not the best title and responded in Committee to our suggestion

that an alternative be found. They felt that "Equal Rights" could be misleading in the context of the creation of the Equal Opportunities Commission under the Sex Discrimination Act, and thought that Commission for Racial Equality was better.
But I believe that that suggestion is the worst of all possible worlds. It introduces the suspect racial connotation and the concept of equality, which is misleading. That concept, particularly for Labour Members, cannot be divorced from material considerations. It is not simply a legal concept. It implies redistribution of income and resources between individuals or from Government to deprived groups or from rich to poor. If it has only a narrow legal connotation, it is likely to raise expectations and to generate subsconscious responses which may be frustrated. The suggested title, therefore, does almost everything which could be done to raise hackles and to generate suspicions and do damage, even before the content of the Act or the Commission's powers have been fully understood and appraised.
9.45 a.m.
Because of this I come back to the concept of "Equal Rights". It is a positive advantage to have a close liaison with the Equal Opportunities Commission because it must be right to work towards a situation in which these two little bits of bureaucracy can be merged, with consequent advantages in terms of expenditure, manpower and the general streamlining of administration. There is, therefore, the negative case for leaving out the concept of race and the positive case for devising a more innocuous and neutral title which will take the mind more in the direction of the merging of the two bodies. We invite hon. Members to spend some time considering this amendment.

Mr. Powell: I do not wish to damn with faint praise. On the contrary, my object is rather to praise than to damn. The best I can say of the amendment, though it is sufficient reason for supporting it, is that "Equal Rights Commission" is clearly superior to "Commission for Racial Equality". It is often discovered that when one is trying to do something which is inherently absurd, which one ought not to be doing at all,


it is impossible to devise a proper name or term to describe it.
That is why this commission which is to be set up to do things that ought not to be attempted by law is so difficult to designate in any acceptable way. Certainly, "Racial Equality" is an unhappy term to introduce into the name of a statutory body. It imports all the difficulties of the word "race" in more senses even than were mentioned by the hon. Member for Barkston Ash (Mr. Alison). Although, by virtue of Clause 3, "racial" is defined in the context of "racial grounds" or "racial group", "racial" at attached to 'equality" presumably—no doubt the Minister will correct me if I am misconstruing this—must be treated merely as the adjective from "race". It does not denote equality as between other characteristics such as are set out in Clause 3.
We are not, as we would be in the context of "racial grounds" or "racial group", talking about
nationality or ethnic or national origins
which proved so happy an exit from the difficulties earlier in the debate. We are simply limiting ourselves to "race"—adjective "racial". To purport to establish a commission to secure equality between things which cannot be defined with any certainty is inherently absurd and improper for the purposes of a statute. I assert without much fear of being contradicted, certainly not seriously, that there can be no secure identification of a race. Is there a Caucasian race? Are the Germans a race? Is there a Welsh race or an English race? There is an English national origin—we heard that from the Minister of State—but that does not help us here. So, without even being able to state what is meant by "race", without any means of identifying a race, we are setting up a commission the name of which denotes that its purpose is to secure equality between the races. That is a pretty ridiculous proposition.
Matters become even more difficult when one switches from the term "racial" to the term "equality". There is at least the merit in the alternative proposed by the official Opposition that their title indicates the sphere within which equality is applied—namely, equality of rights. Rights is a concept, at any rate in the context of statute, suffi-

ciently defined for the notion of equality to be applicable to it. But the title "Commission for Racial Equality" fails to define the sphere or context of equality.
We are, therefore, left with an empty absurdity in the shape of the word "equality", since it is not indicated in what respect the races—even if one could identify them—are to be rendered equal or less unequal by the endeavours of the commission. It would be impossible to know of the existence of races, the term would have no meaning unless there were inequalities as between them, for it is by their inequalities that we are aware that a plurality of them exists. That means that in the total generality of the term "Commission for Racial Equality" there is implicit an inherent contradiction. "Racial" implies inequality in certain contexts and is then negatived by the general word "equality" following it.
The hon. Member for Barkston Ash had a point when he reminded the House that we could by statute secure certain kinds of equality but that there were other kinds that we could not secure. We can secure equality before the organs of the State. We can secure equal treatment in identical circumstances by the organs of the State. One of the basic meanings of the conception of the rule of law is that men will be treated alike who are in like case. But once one departs from that which law can define, the law is unable to secure equality. It cannot secure equality of talent. It cannot secure equality of intellectual ability. It cannot secure equality of vision, of imagination or of many other of the characteristics of humanity.
Lest anyone should suppose that in pointing that out, I am exposing myself to the description "racialist" in the sense of regarding one race as inferior to another, I shall say immediately that, however undefined be the identification of races, there is no doubt that any advantage possessed in one sphere will be found to be offset by disadvantages in another sphere.
During the debate earlier, with no one screaming from any part of the House that it was racialism, it was pointed out without contestation that the West Africans were markedly more talented at cricket—and talents involved are not limited to cricket—than the


English or European, however one likes to denote the race.

Mr. Tim Sainsbury: Surely we should leave the judgment about the talent for cricket until the outcome of the present series, at least?

Mr. Powell: An individual test match may yield a specific result, but that there are differences in talent, in gifts, in propensities, between those recognised as belonging to different races cannot be disputed. Nor can it be other than a contempt of humanity, something which is literally inhuman, to deny or to desire to wish away these differences.
The wealth of humanity is made up precisely by the inequalities in these different respects. Humanity has the capacity—it is one of the things which distinguish mankind—to blend in an almost infinite fashion the contributions of the specialised inequalities of different genetic mixtures. Therefore, the term "racial equality" is a slap in the face to respect for mankind, respect for human personality and respect for what mankind is and should be. It is only when we limit the notion of equality to an area in which the law not only can but should require it—that is, equal treatment by the State in like case—that the term "equality" acquires an intelligible meaning and becomes an appropriate objective.
Therefore, although I cannot say that "equal rights" is ideal, I immensely prefer the title "Equal Rights Commission" to that of "Commission for Racial Equality". What is the trouble with "equal rights" is that it extends further than the purport of the Bill, for there are many rights in which citizens or denizens of a territory incontestably should be equal and be treated alike which do not lie within the confines of the Bill.
Still, that is a much lesser deficiency than the deficiency of the title as it stands. I hope that the House will opt for the less awkward, less unsatisfactory title and accept the amendment.

Mr. Edward Lyons: The matter was raised in Committee, where I took strong exception to the title then proposed, which was "Race Relations Commission". It was so vague that it was open to anyone's misinterpretation. It is not easy to see what "Race Relations Commission" means or what its purpose is.
The Government then, to my horror, came up with "Commission for Racial Equality". The present board is called "Race Relations Board". The proposed title of the new body makes it sound like a commission for equality in racialism. At the very least, the word "race" should be substituted for "racial". I should prefer to go further and to have a title that is not necessarily precise but has no pejorative association. Certainly "racial" has many overtones and undertones. I believe that it would be best left out of the title.
10.0 a.m.
If the Government and the Civil Service had put their heads together to choose the worst possible title, the "Commission for Racial Equality" would have succeeded in being chosen. In Amendment No. 14 I suggest as an alternative the "Equal Status Commission". That is not a precise title but it indicates the purpose of the commission—namely, to seek to achieve equality before the law and equality of opportunity. Both that proposed title, and the title proposed by the Opposition Front Bench—the Equal Rights Commission—have enormous advantages over that proposed by the Government.
There is no reference to women in the Equal Opportunities Commission One is expected to know that it refers to the sexes without it using the word "sex". But the Government are insisting that unless the word "race" goes into the title no one will appreciate the involvement of the commission. Surely it is a naïve approach to suggest that everyone will come running to it on issues not connected with race because there will be confusion unless the word "race" is included.
In all the circumstances I hope that the Government will think again. I have a feeling that they will seek to go into technicalities, examining each word in their title and each word in the proposed alternative. That is not strictly necessary. A broad title will suffice provided that it conveys the right atmosphere. Surely no one will object to a target that seeks to provide equality of rights or status for different groups within the community.

Mr. Sainsbury: We must consider the amendments carefully. If we reflect upon


the history of how we arrived at the description "supplementary benefit", I think it will be agreed that what we call these bodies is important and has a bearing on the manner in which they can carry out their rôles.
I do not agree with the right hon. Member for Down, South (Mr. Powell) that we are trying to find a name for a body that is trying to do something that should not be attempted. A certain amount should be attempted. It may be difficult to achieve, but that does not necessarily mean that a certain amount of what is in the Bill should not be attempted. However, I agree with those who have concluded that the name we have arrived at is the worst possible.
I suppose that if we have a body of commissioners it is necessary to use the "Commission". That part of the title is arguable, but it is not the most important. I entirely agree with those who have criticised the use of the word "racial" Surely there can be no doubt that it is a provocative and unnecessary word to include. As the hon. and learned Member for Bradford, West (Mr. Lyons) has said, the Equal Opportunities Commission does not boast about being concerned with sex. I agree that there is no need to include the word "racial". Apart from obvious objections about the unfortunate overtones of the word, it is doubtful whether it is the right word to include.
Clause 3 shows some of the problems we shall run into if we use the word "racial". If a person is half one race and half another and is discriminated against, on the ground of what race is he being discriminated against? In practice, it would be just as objectionable if somebody were discriminated against on grounds of colour when that person was not black by racial origin but just happened to look that way.
We should undoubtedly try to get rid of the word "racial". Could we not do a swop and get the Equal Opportunities Commission to give up its name and find a better name for that commission?

Mr. Ronald Bell: Could we not abolish the name altogether and choose a name from somewhere else—say, from the Egg Marketing Board?

Mr. Sainsbury: I might incur the Chair's displeasure if I were to go into the rôle of the Egg Marketing Board, the little lion, and all the rest of it. However, I take my hon. and learned Friend's point: it would be nice if that name were to be available. Perhaps if the Equal Opportunities Commission were to advertise for a manager or accountant it could be done without any overtones of sex, and indeed if no overtones of race were required either, perhaps the two could be rolled in together.
"Equal opportunities" is probably a phrase to which few hon. Members would object. I agree with the right hon. Member for Down, South about the inhumanity of the concept that everybody must be entirely equal. We were not perhaps at one on the cricket field in terms of equality, and I gather that some areas of the world produce better sprinters than others. I understand that it has something to do with the way in which the hip bone is attached to the thigh bone, or wherever it is attached. I do not know whether that is true, but in international events certainly a high proportion of black sprinters are found in the first few places. When it comes to limbo dancing, I should hate even to think about it at this hour. This all adds up to the fact that there is considerable inequality between races.
One could multiply examples of differences. Let us take rhythms in music, or the subject of eyesight, where again there are considerable racial differences. As one who wears glasses, I realise how important eyesight it. I believe that the Japanese—and I hope that the right hon. Member for Down, South will admit that there is a Japanese race—have poor eyesight. Black people tend to have good long sight. Nothing any body of commissioners could do will change that situation.

Mr. Kershaw: I understand that if the Japanese did not eat so much rice, their eyesight would be much better. Therefore, perhaps if my hon. Friend the Member for Hove (Mr. Sainsbury) were to eat less rice, his eyesight would improve.

Mr. Sainsbury: My hon. Friend has got me worried because I am rather fond of rice and it has done nothing for me in that respect.
The hon. and learned Member for Bradford, West, dealing with the argument of "equal status" versus "equal right", appeared to be much more attached to the concept of equal rights. If the hon. and learned Member is holding out for the word "status", I cannot go along with him.

Mr. Edward Lyons: I prefer the word "status" to "rights" or "opportunities" because men may have rights, but women may be said only to have opportunities. Rights are more than opportunities. However, "status" seems to be sufficiently broad, and possibly less precise. This imprecision would suggest that it meets the case adequately.

Mr. Sainsbury: I am not sure that I agree with the hon. and learned Member about the imprecision of "status". The word carries the implication of a fixed position—the place where one stands and one stays. One could argue that the word "status" is open to much the same objections as the word "equality".
The hon. and learned Member made the point that women may have only opportunities, but men have rights. That raises the question of rights to what. If we have an Equal Rights Commission, it is responsible for producing an equal right to what? Rights are for everybody, not just one race or ethnic group. Even my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Kinross and West Perthshire (Mr. Fairbairn) as a Scotsman is entitled to some protection from the commission. The commission is all-embracing.
The Equal Opportunities Commission is concerned only with opportunities open to women, which seems to be discrimination on grounds of sex. That is a little unfair, but equal opportunities should be open to everyone.
Clause 43(1)(a) says that the duty of this body that we are establishing under the Bill is to work towards the elimination of discrimination. In paragraphs (b) and (c) the duties are listed as:
to promote equality of opportunity, and good relations between persons of different racial groups generally; and to keep under review the working of the Act.
The duties of paragraphs (b) and (c) probably follow from paragraph (a), which requires the body to work towards the elimination of discrimination. I like that wording because it does not suggest

or boast that the elimination of discrimination can be achieved overnight by statute. The body is asked to work towards it, which is thoroughly commendable if one recognises the limitations of the law in achieving that sort of objective.
Why can we not have a title that incorporates the words "elimination of discrimination"? An authority, a board, or even a commission for the elimination of discrimination would seem to me to have a number of potential advantages over what we are presented with in the Bill.
10.15 a.m.
If we have to make a choice between what is in the Bill and the alternatives covered by the amendments, I would certainly go strongly against a commission for racial equality. Both "racial" and "equality" would have to go. On balance "equal rights" is to be preferred to "equal status" since "status" is open to a number of objections, perhaps not so strongly as the word "equality", but substantially the same.
I am somewhat concerned about "equal rights", because that phrase raises the question of rights as to what. On balance, of the alternatives presented to us I would opt for "equal rights commission". I hope, however, that in another place, where they sometimes discuss these matters with greater wisdom and under less pressure of time than in this Chamber, these matters might be more fully considered.

Mr. Peter Viggers: Does my hon. Friend agree that "Equal Opportunities Commission" might be the best title to sum up the duties of the commission? Might there not in due course be some way of joining the Equal Opportunities Commission with the commission we are discussing here in order to give equal opportunities to people, both male and female, of whatever race?

Mr. Sainsbury: I am grateful for that suggestion because it has a number of merits. For example, there could be overlapping discrimination. There might be an argument as to whether discrimination was on the ground of sex or race, and if the commissions were combined, with sub-groups for various areas, that might facilitate the resolution of the problem.

Mr. Ronald Bell: Like my right hon. Friend the Member for Down, South (Mr. Powell) I come to damn with faint praise. I do not like either of these titles, but I think that the one proposed by my hon. Friend the Member for Barkston Ash (Mr. Alison) is the better. Of course the words must be analysed. We cannot rely on atmosphere in a statute. The words must be definitive and "Commission for Racial Equality" is about as absurd as one could get. I think that we know what "race" is. My right hon. Friend suggested that there was room for doubt about what constituted race. I suppose that there is, but that courageous body the United Nations has declared that there are five races of mankind. My right hon. Friend may say that that only establishes that whatever the number, it is not five. But let us pretend that the United Nations knows what "race" is. The word "racial" is the adjective of or pertaining to race. How can there be equality of or pertaining to race? This is not semantics. It is a matter of substance.
There are three quotations which say the same thing in different words. Last night, I could have remembered the authors. This morning I cannot. The first is:
Error is never so difficult to repair as when It has its roots in language.
The second is:
Improper terms are the chains that bind men to unreasonable conclusions.
The third, from a modern French existentialist, is:
J'ai connu que tout les malheurs des hommes viennent de ce qu'ils ne tiennent pas un langage clair.

Mr. Russell Kerr: On a point of order Mr. Deputy Speaker. Is it not possible to protect us from the flights of fancy of the hon. and learned Member for Beaconsfield (Mr. Bell). I know it is early in the morning, but this is a bit much.

Mr. Nicholas Fairbairn: Further to that point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. If my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Beaconsfield (Mr. Bell) is speaking in a language which hon. Members opposite do not understand, would it not be better for him to address his remarks to those who do understand?

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Oscar Murton): I think the House is becoming a little too frivolous over this matter.

Mr. Bell: I realise that the hon. Member for Feltham and Heston (Mr. Kerr) gets a little dishevelled at this time of the day—

Mrs. Renée Short: The hon. and learned Gentleman should turn round and face this way.

Mr. Bell: The rules of order require me to direct what I am saying to the Chair. If I turned to face the hon. Lady, I should be out of order. That is the only reason I do not turn to face her.
The choice of words is not that important. We have had that fact emphasised to us throughout the night. The Government have replied to all our logical arguments with clichés such as "multiracial society" and "racial equality". I do not often agree with the hon. and learned Member for Bradford, West (Mr. Lyons) but we have hit on the same point this morning. He objects to the word "racial". It is a false use of the adjective.
The proposal of my hon. Friend the Member for Barkston Ash is better, though my first choice would be a manuscript amendment submitted by my hon. Friend the Member for Stroud (Mr. Kershaw) which is "Equal Rights Commission" although that too has its faults because the Bill and the Commission are not about equal rights. This is what we were saying in an earlier debate. All these people have the same civil rights as we have. As soon as they enter the country—which they do in great numbers—they instantly walk into the full civil and legal rights of everyone in this country.
The last Race Relations Act, which is being repealed and re-enacted by this Bill, was commended to us on the ground that its purpose was social. It was to confer a special legal privilege on immigrants in order to compensate for social inferiority. It was nothing to do with equal rights. I suppose that it would be more relevant to call it equal opportunities, but that does not happen to be an amendment that is before us at present, so it is not something that we need to look at.
I do not like the title "Equal Rights Commission". I like even less, I am afraid, the title "Equal Status Commission", because this is not a matter of status, either. With respect to the hon. and learned Member for Bradford, West, immigrants walk into legal status. Concerning status and the meaning of "esteem", no one can legislate for esteem. One is afloat on the waters of one's time in the matter of esteem. One is regarded by one's contemporaries as one deserves to be regarded—a matter of grave concern to the hon. Member for Feltham and Heston, and rightly so.
That is the fact of the matter. One cannot legislate for things like that, and it is absolute folly to try to do so. It is the sort of folly that we have just spent 16 hours debating. All that we have reached now is this equivocation about the best name for this useless body. I would abolish it. It has no useful function to perform. The Race Relations Board is, because it is still in existence, a positive evil. That is being abolished. The best thing that one can say about the Equal Rights Commission, or whatever it is to be called, is that it will no longer be the licensed persecutor of the subjects of this country in the way in which the Race Relations Board is now. It will be mischief-making rather than persecuting—though it has some persecuting powers as well in the Bill to which we have sought to draw attention and to diminish and minimise to the best of our ability.
Basically, the Equal Rights Commission is a mischievous meddling body that will try to create the illusion that by political patronage and jobs for the boys and girls one can set up something that will change the esteem in which people are held in their own country.
What folly and absolute nonsense that is. Equal rights? What right will it ensure is equal for anyone, or for whom? There is no right at all. There is nothing in the Bill about rights. There could not be, because people have got them all already. All that the Bill says is that one must not discriminate between people on the ground of their race, colour, nationality or ethnic origins, and one or two other fripperies of that genus. That is nothing to do with rights. The Bill just says that the hon. and learned Member for Bradford, West and myself, and

my hon. Friend the Member for Stroud, and so on, may not discriminate on those grounds in our judgment of people and in our dealings with them.
Just what advantage this will be to anyone I do not know. It is certainly nothing to do with rights. What is this Commission going to do except try to find out whether anyone has been discriminating? Once upon a time people used to pay a great deal of money in order that their children might become discriminating. Now people will find that if their children grow up to be discriminating they will spend their lives in prison in order to flatter the blind prejudices of the Labour Party and the obscurantist obsessions of the liberal Left, who think that one must have a law about everything and a commission about everything, and that one must appoint to that commission worn-out hacks of one's own political party, at handsome salaries.
10.30 a.m.
That is what it is all about. The whole thing is a sour farce that has occupied far too much of our time. It will do no good. It will poison relations between the native population and the immigrant population, because the native population will bitterly resent it and the immigrant population will either be self-conscious about it or be exploited. By far the greater majority will be self-conscious about it and the small but mischievous minority will exploit it. As for the native population, when they get this commission around their necks their attitude will increasingly be that they dare not treat the immigrant population as they would on their individual merits when they get to know them in case any unfavourable action is treated as discriminating unlawfully.
I wonder whether any hon. Member has not received a letter in which a constituent has said "I must not tell you about something or other. I must not express my opinion of something because of the Race Relations Board." Such people are wrong. The board is not charged with the implementation of Section 6 of the 1965 Act—that is for the Attorney-General—but people do not make that fine distinction. They think that it is the board that can take such action, and they are permanently alarmed because they have a feeling that the legal


machinery of the country is mobilised against them.

Mr. Stokes: Perhaps I could add that local newspapers are hesitant, indeed, to put anything into print about immigrants that might be unfavourable to them.

Mr. Bell: I am glad that my hon. Friend mentioned that, because it goes further than that. What is more, it arises directly on this amendment, because it stems from the existing Commission for Community Relations. I believe that the National Union of Journalists has passed a resolution and circularised its members instructing them—or advising, or whatever is the right wcrd—not to print anything that is unfavourable to the fashionable view about relations between the indigenous and the immigrant population. This is a wicked suppression of news and views, and a most dangerous thing. It is the kind of thing that is stimulated by these bodies, and will be stimulated by the new body. That is the reason for its being set up—to curtail freedom of expression. Freedom even of thought gets stifled in this country by this proliferation of the institutionalised influence of the State. The uncertainty of its powers and its penetration are as dangerous as the actuality of its real powers and penetration.
We in this House are well placed to know how far that body can go, what its powers are, and so on. Most educated people, such as lawyers and so on, are able to judge, but the general body of the public has not that exact assessment of the threat to its freedom of these new bodies. People know that its powers are extensive. People like Mr. Relf can go to prison for an indefinite time, or permanently. People know that these institutions have a great power of oppression but they do not know how they work or to what extent they control their lives. People talking in public houses or on the streets or in shops do not know to what extent they are threatened, and they even think that if they write to a Member of Parliament they may be doing something dangerous. Very often I receive a letter with no address or signature and the person says: "I dare not sign my name because if I do I shall be in trouble with the Race Relations Board".
It is not a question whether to call it the racial equality commission, the equal rights commission, or whether this is just a balloon debate. It is a bad thing. That is the title that I should like—a bad thing. I leave it at that, but it has to have one of these puffed-up titles to glorify its evil influence. If I have to choose one of them, I choose the manuscript amendment in the name of my hon. Friend the Member for Stroud which at least expresses fairly pithily some of the contempt that I feel for the whole idea.

Mr. Fairbairn: Mr. Deputy Speaker—

Mrs. Renée Short: I cannot help but intervene in the hon. and learned Gentleman's attempt to address the House to welcome him to the debate. We have not seen him during the whole of the night. The hon. and learned Member for Beaconsfield (Mr. Bell) said that we had been sitting for 16 hours debating this legislation, and so we have, and now along comes the hon. and learned Member for Kinross and West Perthshire (Mr. Fairbairn), fresh as a daisy, and I welcome him to the Chamber.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I am sure that the House appreciates the hon. Lady's remarks, but no doubt it will be more in order if she addresses the House in a proper manner at a later stage.

Mr. Ronald Bell: Would it be in order for me to say that the hon. Lady looks as fresh as a daisy and that it is very nice to have her here?

Mr. Deputy Speaker: I am sure that that would be acceptable. I hesitate to say that it would be out of order, because that might be misconstrued.

Mr. Fairbairn: I had not got very far with the remarks that I intended to make.

Mrs. Renée Short: I was so staggered to see the hon. and learned Gentleman.

Mr. Fairbairn: I was going to say to the hon. Member for Wolverhampton, North-East (Mrs. Short) that I was going to commit an offence against the Bill by making the offensive observation that not only am I as fresh as a daisy, but I am an hon. and learned daisy and, in addition, a Scottish hon. and learned daisy, and I have to make the appalling distinction between myself and my hon. And


learned Friend the Member for Buckinghamshire, South—

Mr. Ronald Bell: Beaconsfield.

Mr. Fairbairn: I beg his pardon. I should have said my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Beaconsfied (Mr. Bell. He is an English daisy, and I am a Scottish daisy.

Mr. Ronald Bell: If we are to have this punctilious accuracy, I remind my hon. and learned Friend that I am a Scottish daisy sitting for an English constituency.

Mr. Fairbairn: I appreciate that.

Mrs. Renée Short: The hon. and learned Gentleman is an immigrant.

Mr. Fairbairn: My hon. and learned Friend no doubt came from my constituency, where they make a golden liquor of the same name.
There is a gross difficulty between my hon. and learned Friend and myself. It is that although he is a Scotsman he is permitted to practise his profession only in England and I am permitted to practise mine only in Scotland, which seems to be a great offence against anything that could be tolerated by a body calling itself a Commission for Racial Equality, because my clients are inevitably restricted to 5½ million whereas his are restricted to 50 million. That, perhaps, immediately points to the absurdity of the whole concept of racial equality.

Mr. Edward Lyons: Is it not also the case that the Scottish lawyers have so limited their intake that there are fewer Scottish lawyers for the 5½ million people in Scotland than there are for the 50 million in England?

Mr. Fairbairn: It is the fact that the Scots are so much worse behaved than the English that it enlarges the field of work, and so that, too, is unequal.
My hon. and learned Friend the Member for Beaconsfield said that the United Nations had decreed that there were five races on earth. I do not understand how it came to that ethnic conclusion, but, assuming that it has, it is presumably on the basis of the origins of man and neoglyptic man and orthodontic man.
I think that the Scots would regard themselves as a race, and the English

regard themselves as a race. Therefore, considering the concept of races, to say that we are to have a Commission for Racial Equality is an absolute absurdity in itself. How could the Scots ever be equal or be made equal to the English? The Scottish National Party would say that it would require the English to be upgraded or the Scots to be downgraded to an extent which would be unacceptable to either and no doubt unacceptable to both.
Therefore, in dealing with the members of the Scottish National Party Labour Members would be courting an offence under Clause 2 and could be brought before this ridiculous Commission for Racial Equality, because it is as Scots that they discriminate against them. It would not happen if they were not Scottish National Members of Parliament. Labour Members do not discriminate against me as a Scot, but they do discriminate against the Scottish nationalists as Scottish nationalists. Therefore, for every debate in the House in which the Scottish nationalists are even mentioned the Commission for Racial Equality will have to roll up and tick off anybody who discriminates against the Scottish nationalists on that basis. Under the relevant provision the commission will apply to them a requirement or a condition which it will not apply equally in the absence of some racial grouping. It is bound to do so.
Therefore, we immediately come up against the absurdity of this hypothetical world that the Labour Party is so anxious to create in which we have filed everybody down to the same size, to the same weight, the same intelligence and everything else, to the extent where it can be said that they are all equal. Let me take a very simple illustration. Some people prefer the company of musicians, some of academics, some of women to men, some like to be amongst people who like dogs, some like to be amongst people who hate cats. All of them are discriminating. All of them have differences. Why should not those very considerable prejudices be abolished?
I am surprised that my misogyny has not become an offence under the Equal Opportunities Commission. Perhaps it is. I am surprised that philandering has not become an offence in this new enlightened age in which we are all compelled to think the same thoughts about everything


which is different, to treat what is different as the same, and to treat it as the same regardless of whether we feel the same about it.
I should have thought that the proper name to give the commission would be, perhaps, the Identicality Commission—after all, it is an attempt to make everything identical—or the "Indistinguishability Commission". I am surprised that it does not have powers to dye people all the same colour so that we cannot tell the difference. We could then dip the English and bleach the Africans and we should get a sort of mid-coffee Indian colour for everybody which would be fair to everybody because it would be in the middle between the extremes of the whitest and the blackest.

Mr. Philip Goodhart: Has my hon. Friend considered a woad?

Mr. Fairbairn: The difficulty with that, again, is that there would be prejudices, because woad is blue and blue is not red and it would offend particularly those below the Gangway opposite if they had to sing "The Blue Flag" instead of "The Red Flag". In any event, woad has racial associations with the early English invaders and it would be thoroughly inappropriate for anything so racial and Saxon as woad to be introduced.
To ensure that nobody could distinguish anyone else's colour, another way out might be to make everybody blind. Then, if we all had our eyes put out, we should not be able to tell the difference on the basis of race. We should have to send some people to elocution lessons, because it is fairly easy to tell a Scot or an Englishman or an Indian, perhaps, when he speaks. So that might be a difficulty. I suppose that if we were all blind we could all learn Braille and the Morse code and if we did not speak we should never know between whom we were not distinguishing.
10.45 a.m.
My hon. and learned Friend the Member for Beaconsfield said that this commission had no useful function. Then he very rightly corrected himself and said that it had a useful function—he said that it provided jobs for the boys or the girls. That is certainly one of the commission's primary functions, but it also

has another extremely useful function, which the Labour Party will doubtless appreciate. It has the function of increasing the amount of public expenditure. On her resignation the former Under-Secretary of State for Education and Science said "We are the party of public expenditure". It is not just an attitude of the Labour Party: it is a positive ideal. It is a goal in itself. This is a commission which is one of the instruments which can attain this wonder of the Labour Party.
The difference between the moderates and the extremists in the Labour Party is quite simple. The moderates take the view that money should be free and superabundant like air. The extremists take the view that it is free and superabundant like air and that, just as air should be breathed, money should be spent. So here we have a commission of drop-outs who will be appointed to try to order people to take up attitudes to things which they do not hold and to give up attitudes to things which they hold dearly.
Thus the great Socialist machine once again is able to work towards the ideal robot man whose thoughts are preordained by a commission appointed by the Government. Therefore, it should not be the Commission for Racial Equality. It should be the commission for mental equality or "the commission for robot creation".
The amendment suggesting that the commission should be called the Equal Status Commission is based on a fundamental ignorance, because in law status means something. A woman has status. A widow has status. A divorced person has status. A married man has status. A single man has status. A minor has status. A pupil has status. They all have different statuses in law. So if this body were to be called the Equal Status Commission, the Indian child and the Indian widow would have to be regarded as having equal status in law.
In such an event, the commission would have to go about entitling children to do what adults are entitled to do, or forbidding adults to do what children are not allowed to do. Either adults would not be allowed to go to the cinema until whatever age it is that children are allowed to go to the pictures unaccompanied by an adult, or, alternatively,


children would have to be allowed to go to the cinema unaccompanied by an adult. The status of children and adults would have to be equal in law.
There are 100 different distinctions of status and right between various members of the community even if they are all of the same colour, height and intelligence, merely because of their age or because of their marital condition. "The Equal Status Commission" would therefore be a thoroughly inappropriate use of language.
I am querulent, while we are dealing with some metaphrastic and perissological language as "the Commission for Racial Equality", to know why it was thought to be an improvement in legislation to move from a Race Relations Board to a Commission for Racial Equality. What is the distinction between a board and a commission? Neither is desirable. I do not understand the difference, except that "board" is Anglo-Saxon and "commission" is Latin and both are a misuse of language in the sense in which it is attempted to use the word. I cannot see the necessity for saying that.
When we have the Commission for Racial Equality, what characteristics of race will be equalised? It suggests that all characteristics of race are to be equalised. They are to be made equal economically, in number, strength, property-owning, attitude, and in their devotion to religion, or not to religion, to the same religion—equal in all things. Of course they will not be equal in any of those things, and people will treat them as different because they actually are different.
That is the great offence which is to be struck at—that one must not treat as different something which is different and wants to be different. That is what I find extraordinary. I suppose that it will be an offence for people who come from north of the border to celebrate St. Andrew's Day because the English will not be able to do that. It will be an offence to celebrate St. George's Day because the Scots will not be able to do that—not with their hands on their hearts, anyway. It will be an offence to celebrate Burns Night or to do any of the racially different things which people choose to do. I do not know what English Members think of people who celebrate Burns Night. I do not think I

should like to say what my view is. I am sure, however, that the attitude of English Members to Burns Night is utterly different from that of Scottish Members.
Each individual has a distinction which is his personality. Each group of people has a corporate personality which is recognised in law. People talk about the Scots, Indians, English and French as having corporate characteristics. What this absurd outfit, the commission—perhaps it should be called an identicality outfit; that might be a better term for it—will tell us to do is to say that the French are exactly the same as the Germans and that the Indians are exactly the same as the Irish.
It was Bismarck who proposed the final solution to the Irish problem. He said that Ireland was the most fertile place on earth and that the Irish were the laziest people on earth; on the other hand, the Dutch were the most industrious people on earth and therefore the Dutch should be put in Ireland. I hope that my right hon. Friend the Member for Penrith and The Border (Mr. Whitelaw) is listening to this Irish solution; he did not try it when he was responsible for affairs in Northern Ireland. Bismarck said that if the Dutch were put in Ireland the most industrious people would be operating on the most fertile land on earth, and that if the Irish were put in Holland they were so lazy they would not mend the dykes and they would all drown and that would be the end of the Irish problem. [HON. MEMBERS: "Disgraceful."] That was the proposition made by Bismarck. I am merely quoting a German statesman.
It is because the commission has moved into the realms of the absurd and the niceties of human thought, opinion, preference and distinction that it is an utterly futile bureaucratic concept which is a major waste of the money of taxpayers who must raise it.

Mr. Edward Lyons: It is plain that the hon. Gentleman has not read the Bill, because not a word that he has said has been relevant to any of its objects, but is he not aware that in Committee his own Front Bench gave general support to the Bill and, therefore, in his castigation of Labour Members, he should include members of his own Front Bench, who, to the best of my knowledge, are


likely to vote for the Bill on Third Reading. Are they Socialist? Do they want everything to be grey?

Mr. Kershaw: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. It has become a habit which is much to be deplored for hon. Members opposite, sometimes even hon. and learned Members opposite, to call in question the decisions of the Chair in that they say that speeches made from this side of the House are totally irrelevant. If they had been totally irrelevant, would not the Chair have taken action?

Mr. Deputy Speaker: This is entirely a matter for the Chair. The Chair will take the decision at the appropriate time should it be necessary.

Mr. Fairbairn: I am not chastened by the castigation of the hon. and learned Member for Bradford, West (Mr. Lyons), because if he cannot understand the simple meaning of the word "status" how is so simple a Scotsman as myself to understand so lengthy, perissological and grandiloquent a Bill as this? It is difficult for people, particularly lawyers, to understand the complicated language of modern drafting. Therefore, in my ignorance, I find myself unable to do it.
The alternative titles are of little difference or of little note. None will mean what it says, because the whole outfit is a meaningless exercise in an attempt to ensure that we are not allowed to think for ourselves.

Mr. Kershaw: I share the view of my hon. Friends, which I think is also the view of some hon. Members opposite, that the use of the word "race" in the title of the Bill is to be wholly deplored. Unfortunately, in recent years the use of the word "race" in titles of Bills and of boards has acquired a connotation with conflict.
I suppose that it might be argued that the conflict would have occurred anyway, but there can be no doubt—certainly there is no doubt among the public —that the existence of the word "race" and of the Race Relations Board has been exploited and has made worse a situation which, I agree, might have existed anyway. The way in which the board has operated with this title has

contributed to what we have referred to as a sort of race industry in this country, with professional protesters and people who have at heart, not the good of the whole country, but only the good of the limited number of people for whom they speak.
I agree that the question of the name is important. The right hon. Member for Down, South (Mr. Powell) reflected that the difficulty of finding a suitable name was that the object of the commission was uncertain. He asked whether the other conditions mentioned in Clause 3(1), namely, colour, race, nationality or ethnic or national origins, would be included in the consideration brought to bear by the Commission on problems placed before it. Although the Minister of State tried to answer that question, he did not give an adequate answer. It was certainly not an answer that I could comprehend.
We all realise that "race" is unclear and unsure. It is also prejudicial to the happy relations between the various groups in the country, and I therefore think that the alternative proposed in the amendment is preferable.

11.0 a.m.

Mr. John Grant: It has emerged from the debate that whichever title is chosen for the new Commission it will not satisfy all hon. Members. In Committee the Opposition Front Bench welcomed the change we made as an improvement while reserving the right to come back to it on Report. The Opposition Front Bench thought that we were moving in the right direction.
The arguments advanced in Committee in favour of "Equal Rights Commission" were broadly that that title avoided a reference to race relations, a reference which would be at best unhelpful and might be considered to be provocative, and that it more adequately characterised the new commission's rôle. The same arguments were put forward today.
My hon. and learned Friend the Member for Bradford, West (Mr. Lyons) warned me against going into technicalities. I assure him that I have no intention of doing so. The Government recognise that a title containing "race" or "race relations" could be provocative to some people. Nevertheless, we cannot


ignore the existence of racial discrimination, and the Government think it necessary to legislate against it. There is, therefore, no merit in choosing a euphemistic title for the Commission.
The Government also recognise that the Bill is as much about equality as it is about race relations, and there is good reason to stress that positive aspect. There is, however, a danger in suggesting that the commission's remit is wider than it is by including in the title the phrase "equal rights", which suggests a wider range of responsibilities than those which are given to the commission. It was with those points in mind that we proposed—we hoped helpfully—the title "Commission for Racial Equality".
It is difficult to produce a title which will meet all the criticisms but, on balance, we think that the proposed title is better than others that have been suggested. The area of the commission's concern is defined fairly closely with the aim of stressing more positively the new commission's aims.
It has been argued that the title "Commission for Racial Equality" offers too grandiose an objective which the commission might not be able to live up to. We regard that objective as over-stated. The title "Equal Status Commission" suggested by my hon. and learned Friend

Division No 230.]
AYES
[11 05 a m


Alison, Michael
Moate, Roger
Stokes, John


Bell, Ronald
Molyneaux, James
Tebbit, Norman


Biggs-Davison, John
Morrison, Charies (Devizes)
Viggers, Peter


Boscawen, Hon Robert
Neubert, Michael
Wall, Patrick


Brotherton, Michael
Page, Rt Hon R. Graham (Crosby)
Whitelaw, Rt Hon William


Dean, Paul (N Somerset)
Parkinson, Cecil
Winterton, Nicholas


Fraser, Rt Hon H. (Stafford &amp; St)
Powell, Rt Hon J. Enoch



Goodhart, Philip
Rossi, Hugh (Hornsey)
TELLERS FOR THE AYES:


Lyons, Edward (Bradford W)
Sainsbury, Tim
Mr John Corrie and


Mayhew, Patrick
Short, Mrs Renée (Wolv NE)
Mr Spencer le Marchant


Miller, Hal (Bromsgrove)
Steel, David (Roxburgh)





NOES


Barnett, Rt Hon Joel (Heywood)
Grant, John (Islington C)
Newens, Stanley


Bates, Alf
Grocott, Bruce
O'Halloran, Michael


Bean, R. E.
Hamilton, James (Bothwell)
Palmer, Arthur


Bidwell, Sydney
Harrison, Walter (Wakefield)
Pavitt, Laurie


Booth, Rt Hon Albert
Hayman, Mrs Helene
Pendry, Tom


Callaghan, Jim (Middleton &amp; P)
Jenkins, Hugh (Putney)
Radice, Giles


Carter-Jones, Lewis
John, Brynmor
Rees, Rt Hon Merlyn (Leeds S)


Cocks, Michael (Bristol S)
Johnson, James (Hull West)
Reid, George


Coleman, Donald
Johnston, Russell (Inverness)
Robinson, Geoffrey


Colquhoun, Ms Maureen
Judd, Frank
Roderick, Caerwyn


Cook, Robin F. (Edin C)
Kerr, Russell
Rodgers, William (Stockton)


Corbett, Robin
Kinnock, Nell
Silkin, Rt Hon S. C. (Dulwich)


Cox, Thomas (Tooting)
Latham, Arthur (Paddington)
Skinner, Dennis


Crowther, Stan (Rotherham)
Lestor, Miss Joan (Eton &amp; Slough)
Snape, Peter


Cryer, Bob
Lipton, Marcus
Spearing, Nigel


Dormand, J. D.
McElhone, Frank
Stallard, A. W.


Edwards, Robert (Wolv SE)
Mackenzie, Gregor
Stoddart, David


Ellis, John (Brigg &amp; Scun)
Madden, Max
Summerskill, Hon Dr Shirley


Flannery, Martin
Miller, Mrs Millie (Iltord N)
Thomas, Ron (Bristol NW)


Foot, Rt Hon Michael
Moorman, Eric
Tomlinson, John


George, Bruce
Morris, Alfred (Wythenshswe)
Walker, Harold (Doncaster)

the Member for Bradford, West suffers the same defect of being euphemistic as does the title "Equal Rights Commission". My hon. and learned Friend said that the wording was somewhat imprecise. The Government's view is that it fails to reflect the aspects of the commission's work characterised by "equal rights".

The Community Relations Council avoided the use of "race" in its title. It did not for that reason become more popular. On the contrary, many correspondents wrote to the Race Relations Board, because it appeared to be the more appropriate body. That is an example of the confusion that might arise here, particularly with the Equal Opportunities Commission. We do not rule out in the long term the possibility of a merger between the two bodies.

The Government's view is that the difference between "race" and "racial" is minimal. Grammatically, they favour "racial" rather than "race" in this context. The ground which the commission will cover is fully defined in the Bill. I hope on those grounds that the House will reject the amendment.

Question put, That the amendment be made:—

The House divided: Ayes 28, Noes 71.

Walker, Terry (Kingswood)
Whitehead, Phillip
TELLERS FOR THE NOES:


Ward, Michael
Wise, Mrs Audrey
Mr James Tinn and


Watkinson, John
Wrigglesworth, Ian
Mr Ted Graham


White, Frank R. (Bury)
Young, David (Bolton E

Question accordingly negatived.

Clause 70

INCITEMENT TO RACIAL HATRED

Mr. Ronald Bell: I beg to move Amendment No. 23, in page 45, line 3, leave out Clause 70.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: With this we may take Government Amendments Nos. 24, and 27 to 31.
We may also take the following amendments:
No. 25, in page 45, line 8 leave out from 'where' to 'be' in line 9 and insert:
'it is his intention that hatred shall'.
No. 26, in line 10 at end insert:
'or harmonious race relations are likely to be aggravated'.

Mr. Bell: This amendment raises what I regard as the principal issue arising out of the Report stage of this Bill. The Bill itself raises matters of principle which are of the greatest magnitude. During consideration of the Report stage it has been possible only to challenge these in general and not in particular, but this amendment draws attention to the most important issue which can be raised.
Clause 70 extends the limitations upon freedom of speech and writing which are currently contained in Section 6 of the Race Relations Act 1965. The passage of the Act with that section in it introduced a new extension of the provisions of the Public Order Act, and was highly controversial.
When it passed into law in 1965 it was a very severe encroachment on the traditional freedoms of the British people. It has been the subject of adverse comment ever since. Indeed, The Times ran a leading article some years ago calling for its repeal. Furthermore, the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr. Grimond), the former Liberal Party Leader, some years ago expressed the opinion that the section should be repealed. Mr. Mark Bonham Carter, the Chairman of the Community Relations

Commission and former Chairman of the Race Relations Board, also expressed the opinion that the section is of doubtful merit. Therefore, it is not merely people such as myself who have taken a libertarian view on legislation of this kind and who have pressed for the repeal of Section 6 of the 1965 Act.
However, instead of its being repealed, we now have Clause 70 seeking to make the most objectionable extension of the encroachment on freedom of speech and writing. The danger of a breach of the peace is removed from the former requirements, and it is now made an offence. Therefore, in this respect we are talking about criminal offences and no longer about the civil procedure. It would become an offence to publish or distribute written matter, described as "threatening, abusive or insulting" or if a person
uses in any public place or at any public meeting words which are threatening, abusive or insulting".
There is no requirement about a threat to the breach of peace. There is no need for an intention to stir up racial hatred and the words are not required to be "threatening, abusive and insulting", but the list is disjunctive—namely "threatening, abusive, or insulting". The meaning of words such as "threatening" or "abusive" or "insulting" is very much a matter of opinion. Indeed, they are words to which the overworked description "subjective" might be applied.
The 1965 Act did not prove to have a very limiting effect on the scope of the existing provisions. The defence which has arisen has hinged mainly on whether, under existing law, there was an intention to stir up racial hatred or whether there was a danger of a breach of the peace. However, it would not be right to suggest that issue has not also been joined on the question whether such words were abusive or insulting.
It is now proposed, in this free country of England, that it shall be a criminal offence to use words of which it can merely be said that they are abusive or insulting and that because of all the circumstances something called "hatred" is likely to be stirred up. Again, the word


"hatred" is one of the vague, undefinable words against which it must be hard for anybody to defend himself. I suppose that we have to be thankful that we have not worse before us, because the White Paper at the end contained some astonishing paragraphs. It was said that the Government were not to propose a total restriction on the expression of what were called racialist views because that would be too severe an encroachment on the rights of free speech in this country, but it was then said that the Government were well aware of the strength of feeling about this issue and were prepared to consider representations for that prohibition to be included in the Bill.
If it had been included in the Bill, a good many of the speeches which have been made in the last 16 hours could only be made in this House and could not be made outside. It would be too dangerous for some of the geneticists who have been expressing opinions on the subject of race in the last few years, such as Jensen and Eysenck—

Mr. Bidwell: Racists.

Mr. Bell: The hon. Gentleman goes too far.

Mr. Bidwell: They are racists.

Mr. Bell: The hon. Member for Ealing, Southall (Mr. Bidwell) describes these highly qualified and able men, Jensen and Eysenck, as racists in the fields of genetics because their studies and researches have led them to propound the idea that there may be significant genetic differences between races and that they may be deep-seated.

Mr. Flannery: Hitler thought that, too.

Mr. Bell: It does not matter whether Hitler thought so. The only question we have to consider in the end is the matter of truth. The truth is all that matters. Our duty is to follow truth wherever it leads. I have referred to two people who have put forward certain views that go against the political current of the times. However, Labour Members seek to sweep those views aside and to suggest that their proponents are racists.

Mr. Bidwell: Does the hon. and learned Gentleman appreciate that when one of these men sought to address a

meeting in London, our young people in the field of genetics demonstrated actively against him?

Mr. Bell: I have no doubt that the Southall young would demonstrate against anything.

Mr. Bidwell: They were young white geneticists.

Mr. Bell: The kind of people who demonstrate are not usually very academically-minded. People of any intellectual achievement do not have to demonstrate. They can express themselves with words, which is a rather more sophisticated form of expression.
The threat in the White Paper was that such expressions of opinion would be made illegal. But the Government are not taking that course. They have said that they will "listen to representations".
During the night I accused the Home Secretary of Lysenkoism. He did not answer that attack. Perhaps I went a little far at that point of the debate, but certainly what he is seeking to do in the Bill goes dangerously near to that philosophy. This envisages the prohibition of views which do not accord with political theories of the Government of the time, and it is a highly dangerous practice.
In a free country such as ours, a very mature country, with a great tradition of freedom and developed institutions, it is essential that people should be free to say what they honestly think. Any man in Britain, saying what he honestly believes to be true in this field, should be safe from the law in saying it. That is my belief. I think it is the belief of any balanced person on any side in politics.

11.30 a.m.

Mrs. Renée Short: Is the hon. and learned Gentleman saying that anyone should be allowed to say anything he wishes, even though it incites to violence and murder, as we have seen already in London?

Mr. Bell: The hon. Lady is making a travesty of what I said.

Mrs. Renée Short: Not at all.

Mr. Bell: I am not talking about people inciting to violence and murder but about people expressing an opinion upon matters of race—

Mrs. Renée Short: —which may well be the cause of violence.

Mr. Bell: Will the hon. Lady listen for a moment? I am trying to say what the Bill and the clause are about. The Bill is not about the other things in life. It is about race. The nature of the differences between races, the physical causes of them, their significance, and their future are all in the end not so much matters of opinion as matters of ascertained fact. At the present stage they are probably matters of opinion. One can hold either view. All I am saying is that people should, within the law, be free to express any view which their processes of thought and their studies have led them to believe to be true, provided that they express it honestly.
If I am being strict in my thinking, I do not believe that political views are the danger in Clause 70. Nevertheless, in as much as political views enters into this, my opinion would be that anyone who expresses a political view in which he believes, and who expresses it in good literary English—I am not talking about abusive language or anything of that sort but about straight English prose—should be safe. It does not matter whether he is right or wrong in the end. We cannot have controversy unless we have difference of opinion. What we want is controversy on a high plane, not that it should not contain ideas which shock the other side in the controversy.
To my mind, the right criterion will always be the danger of breaches of the peace. Even there we have to be careful. I sometimes feel that we have come too far away from the old Dicey doctrine of Beatty v. Gillbanks, which many in the House will know about. It is dangerous to say to someone "If you so annoy people that they are inclined to hit you, you are to blame." That is not necessarily true. It is certainly not the Dicey doctrine that most of us learned in our young days at Oxford.
People must be free to express opinions. Those who do not like them must seek to refute with words, not with blows, the ideas with which they do not agree. Society in a civilised country must not be regulated to the standard of those whose only answer to an argument they do not like is a brick.
That, in a sentence, is what I am saying. I think that the clause is a most dangerous extension of existing provisions, which are dangerous enough in themselves. Most of the responsible organs of opinion, since the White Paper and the Bill were published, have expressed hesitation and doubt at least about this. Some, of course, have made outright attacks on the Bill.
I do not think that this provision has many friends among the non-political elements in society. I do not think that it even has a great many friends in the Labour Party. I do not think that hon. Members on the Government side like this kind of thing. After all, they may be the establishment now, but they have come up the rebellious way. They have made very wide claims to freedom—

Mrs. Renée Short: They have not incited to violence.

Mr. Bell: They have made very wide claims on the Establishment.

Mrs. Short: We are concerned also about causes of violence.

Mr. Bell: I am talking about words spoken or written in presenting arguments. I am not talking about really insulting language which is designed to daunt and provoke an individual. We do not need a provision of this sort to cover that. The law has already covered it for centuries. I am directing myself to the extension of that ancient law. This clause strikes at the free exchange of ideas, and is based upon a doctrinaire criterion. The free exchange of ideas is highly objectionable to certain people on the Left, who in the past have advanced views which were highly objectionable to the establishment. These people on the Left have been the champions and the claimants of a wider freedom of expression—

Mr. Stokes: And sung the Red Flag.

Mr. Bell: I have always spoken and voted for freedom for my opponents as much as for myself. I want a wider freedom such as, indeed, the Left has used and exploited. It ask for this wider free dom not because the Left has had it and I want the Right to have it. I want it because I believe that this wider freedom is the only way to ascertain the truth.

Mr. Ron Thomas: Will the hon. and learned Gentleman give us an example of any Left-wing teaching or action which has been likely to stir up hatred against any racial group?

Mr. Bell: One knows that that is not the way in which Left-wing activism has gone, but I can think of many examples where hatred has been stirred up against other groups, though not on a racial basis. But the particular interest of the emergent Left in the past has been rather in economic affairs and matters of that sort. The Left has certainly made attacks on capitalist groups.

Mrs. Renée Short: Of course.

Mr. Bell: It has attacked centres of power in that way. It has enjoyed wide freedom in that field. But now the Left wants to deny this freedom to other people.
The Bill is about race relations. I cannot talk about anything else. I am well aware that it will not hit the liberal Left, because it canonises its opinions. That is what I am complaining about. There are people with other opinions, and they should enjoy the same sort of freedom of expression.
The effect of my amendment is to strike out the new clause and Section 6 of the 1965 Act, and to go back to the pre-1965 position, when the Public Order Act and the old common law, in my opinion, fully covered the position. In fact, even the Public Order Act was a reaction to the Mosley period, which was a bad and unfortunate one in our lives, and which happily has passed.

Mrs. Renée Short: It has not passed.

Mr. Bell: Nothing in the amendment to which I am speaking today has anything to do with the pre-existing Public Order Act. That remains the same. I only say in passing that it would not worry me if we repealed that Act. But the purpose of my amendment is to strike out the new clause and also to repeal Section 6 of the Race Relations Act 1965. I think we are discussing, together with this amendment, an amendment which would restore the 1965 Act.

Mr. Alison: There is an official Opposition amendment, No. 25, which I shall have the pleasure to move.

Mr. Bell: I am obliged to my hon. Friend. I have been speaking to my own proposal but there are variants of it on the Order Paper. The House will have before it certain options and not merely the pure doctrine of liberty as I have expounded it.

Mr. Alison: Amendment No. 25, in the names of my right hon. and hon. Friends and myself, does not go as far as the special exclusion which my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Beaconsfield (Mr. Bell) sought in his amendment. The basis of the amendment is to try to insert into Clause 70 the doctrine, or concept, of intention, along the lines of the strictures brought against the provisions of the 1968 Act by Lord Justice Scarman, who said in paragraph 125 of the Red Lion Square disorders report that Section 6 of the Race Relations Act 1968
is merely an embarrassment to the police. Hedged about with restrictions (proof of intent, requirement of the Attorney-General's consent) it is useless to a policeman on the street.
We take this point, but we also take a further and subtler point which Lord Justice Scarman made at the conclusion of that paragraph. He wrote:
"The section needs radical amendment to make it an effective sanction, particularly, I think, to its formulation of the intent to be proved before an offence can be established."
To some of us, he was not thereby saying that intention should be evacuated from the concept and from the kind of clause we are dealing with here. We believe that it is to an extent undesirable, and potentially damaging to evacuate a concept of intention in formulating what is, after all, a criminal offence. This is a field which is extremely sensitive. It is an area in which, as the Home Secretary has said in another context, it is vital that not only is justice done but seen to be done. We would paraphrase that by saying that it is an area in which it is vital that fairness should be aimed at, and be seen to be aimed at and, if possible, achieved.
There is no doubt that for the ordinary citizen the question of what is right or wrong in a criminal sense revolves around what was, or was not, in the mind of the person committing the act. Guilt in a criminal sense, without intention, is also a contradiction in terms. For the man in the street to say that somebody has committed a frightful crime which he did not


intend to do, or that it was unintentional, is either a contradiction in terms or else it means that that man was somehow subnormal or subhuman. The criminal act must be one which is intended to be done with malice. It is not unreasonable, and quite understandable, that the criminal law does, in fact, provide that there is no criminal act unless the mind that goes with it is criminal.
I attempted to show when we debated this in Committee that there are some areas of the law—the Factories Acts and the Road Traffic Acts are cases in point—where criminality can arise without there being deliberate intention. I think these are exceptions which prove the rule. They are examples of acts, the effects and results of which can be so lethal, so profoundly anti-social or damaging, such harm and injury might be caused to individuals by them, or by negligence, that universal and undisputed disapprobation and rejection are caused. In those circumstances, I think the sort of criminality which attaches to an unintended misdemeanour or act of negligence is understandable.

11.45 a.m.

Mr. Ron Thomas: Does not subsection (3) deal with this? It says that
it shall be a defence for the accused to prove that he was not aware of the content of the written matter in question and neither suspected nor had reason to suspect it of being threatening, abusive or insulting.
Therefore, the rest of that part of Clause 70 would not follow. I should have thought that would deal with the situation.

Mr. Alison: As I understand it, a lack of awareness—not of knowledge—does not cover the point that intention was not present. To differentiate between the kind of Road Traffic Act or Factories Act legislation, the end result for doing a certain deed, which is here made criminal, will not automatically and universally result in disapprobation or criticism. I have in mind the sort of typical case—I fear this will arise often—of spokesmen, perhaps enthusiastic, passionate spokesmen for minority groups, who will make speeches and publish writing declaiming principles usually about the way in which a particular minority group is discriminated against,

perhaps economically, perhaps in law, perhaps by the provision of various services in our society; they will be denouncing the practice of the white majority which runs this country, denouncing in terms which gain universal approbation, support and enthusiastic endorsement from that community, and which will result in stirring up in the minds of that community—among, let us say, the poor West Indian school leavers without jobs—a sense of righteous indignation and anger against the white majority who rule them. That would be very difficult to differentiate from stirring up hatred against a majority racial group. Yet it would be, from the point of view of those in whom this was stirred up, entirely justifiable and reasonable, indeed necessary, because it will secure redress and change.
That can result, where there is no intention to stir up hatred, and under the terms of the Bill, in a serious criminal offence being committed which, if brought forward as a charge against, let us say, an eminent West Indian spokesman, could result in his being prosecuted on a criminal charge. Immediately, exactly the wrong situation could arise, in the sense that he would say he was not doing anything wrong; he could say he had not intended to stir up hatred, but was merely representing and claiming the truth. We would have a martyr situation.
It is for those reasons that if Clause 70 is to be moved to the Public Order Act, as the Government are helpfully proposing in principle, following the debate we had in Committee, I hope that the Home Secretary will agree that this move to the Public Order Act will be on all fours with the provisions now in that Act. We know that intent is at present the common denominator of establishing the original provisions in the 1965 Act. I hope the Government will not rule out the possibility, in order to safeguard us from the unintentional distress in this field, of reintroducing, as must be the norm in the case of a criminal act, the essential and specific element of intent.

Mr. Roy Jenkins: We are dealing here with a total of 11 amendments. As the hon. and learned Member for Beaconsfield (Mr. Bell) said, Amendment No. 23 would remove altogether the offence of incitement to racial hatred. That would not


merely put us back to the previous position, because the hon. and learned Gentleman would leave out Clause 70 while leaving in, I think, Clause 78, which repeals the relevant section of the 1968 Act. I believe that that would be profoundly wrong at present. I believe that it is contrary to the views of the official Opposition, and it is certainly contrary, I believe, to the strongly held views of everyone on this side.
Amendment No. 25 in effect would leave us where we were before the Bill, reinstating the element of subjective intent and resting upon the position as it was in 1965 and as it stands after the 1968 Act. Although he did not really deal with it, the hon. Member for Barkston Ash (Mr. Alison) mentioned the point made partly by Lord Justice Scarman in what is generally agreed to be his most distinguished report on the Red Lion Square disaster. He made it clear that he thought that the law should not remain in its present ineffective state.
The hon. Member for Barkston Ash correctly said that Lord Justice Scarman did not tell me—it was not his duty—exactly how to reform the law, but he said clearly that it should not remain in its present ineffective state. But that is exactly what Amendment No. 25 proposes. I must take my own responsibility and not that of Lord Justice Scarman, but I believe that we have moved, in what we have put into the Bill, in a way that most effectively and in a reasonably balanced way improves the law in what I think is the direction which Lord Justice Scarman had in mind.
We have to strike a balance here. We cannot bring in the whole panoply of law to prevent anyone in any circumstances from making a remark which is disagreeable to any group, whether a racial minority or anyone else. It would be wrong to have people going around taking up snatches of private conversation and so on.
But at the same time there are certain actions which are objectionable. That is recognised by the position of the Opposition, or they would be in favour of the position of the hon. and learned Member for Beaconsfield. The trouble is that the Opposition's position, although reasonable in principle, would be ineffective in

practice. I want to move to something which is more effective in practice.
I do not think that we are moving unreasonably here. In the first place, the language complained of has to be threatening, abusive or insulting. If someone indulges publicly in such language, it is not unreasonable that he should be required to take account of the likely effect of his words. That is the objective test which we are introducing. It is a test, although the circumstances are slightly different, which is to some extent in line with Section 5 of the Public Order Act, under which the test is an objective test of whether a breach of the peace is thereby liable to be caused.
That is an objective test. That is someone being called upon to apprehend the likely and natural consequences of his acts. That is in line with a good part of our law. I have always found in my dealings in these matters—I speak with great caution here, not being a lawyer—that the doctrine of mens rea is rather less clear and universal than it is sometimes thought to be. Therefore, I believe that we are proceeding reasonably.
The hon. Member for Barkston Ash, as nearly always, was perfectly fair. He said that there are exceptions. I think that there are others. He instanced road traffic and factory legislation. It is easy to imagine circumstances at present in which the deliberate use of threatening, abusive or insulting racial language can be at the very least as socially damaging and reprehensible as any road traffic offence that I can think of.

Mrs. Renée Short: Much more so.

Mr. Jenkins: I am seeking to make my speech in as uncontroversial a manner as possible. At least such an instance would be as damaging as any road traffic offence that I can easily think of.
My hon. Friend the Member for Ealing, Southall (Mr. Bidwell) wants us to go rather further. I do not want to take too much of a point on drafting and I do not want him to think me nitpicking. I do not know whether his amendment would stand from a drafting point of view, but I do not think that it is possible to "aggravate harmonious race relations", as his amendment says. There would be a considerable verbal difficulty there. My hon. Friend also


introduces in the amendment a vague concept which tilts the balance too much the other way.

Mr. Bidwell: Oddly enough, my right hon. Friend is replying to an argument that I have not yet raised, although I intended to do so, but he has got hold of its substance. Since the exact words of the amendment are not acceptable, will it be the intention of the Home Office to keep constantly in mind the effective working of the legislation as the wording stands? What is feared in many quarters is that racist propaganda—obnoxious leaflets being handed out and strife being stirred up among schoolchildren—may not be able to be acted upon because it cannot always be proved that race hatred has been stirred up.

Mr. Jenkins: As my hon. Friend knows, the operation of the law, the question of prosecutions, will be a matter not for me but for the Director of Public Prosecutions and the Attorney-General. The Attorney-General's consent is required, I think rightly required, to any prosecution under this clause. But I shall certainly watch the position, as we watched it develop previously. So far, in this difficult field, I believe that we have got as near to the right balance—it is a balance which has to be struck—as one reasonably can.
We also propose, in Amendment No. 24, which is followed up by five later amendments, to take this whole clause out of the Race Relations Bill and put it into the Public Order Act 1936. There are some technical objections to this, but by no means are they overwhelming. I hope and believe that it will be welcome to most hon. Members. I believe that it will be welcome to the Opposition, because the first mention of this matter in our current debates was when the hon. Member for Dorking (Sir G. Sinclair) interrupted my speech on Second Reading. Speaking fairly favourably of our approach to Clause 69 as it then was—it has now become Clause 70—he asked whether it should not be in the Public Order Act.
This point was taken up strongly in Committee by the right hon. Member for Penrith and The Border (Mr. Whitelaw), the hon. Member for Cambridge (Mr. Lane) and others. We considered this

suggestion. I thought that it was a sensible move if we could do it. We found that we could do it. I think that it sits more naturally and appropriately with the Public Order Act than it does with a Race Relations Act. I have therefore been glad to put down Amendment No. 24, along with consequential Amendments Nos. 27, 28, 29, 30 and 31.
That, therefore, is the Government's position, which I think on the whole is reasonable. We would naturally ask the House to accept Amendment No. 24 and the five consequential amendments but none of the other three in this group.

Mr. Ron Thomas: I understood my hon. Friend the Member for Ealing, Southall (Mr. Bidwell) to say that there could be clear-cut cases not only of stirring up racial hatred but, for instance, of distributing to children leaflets which over a long period erode harmonious race relations. My hon. Friend was asking whether this will be kept under continual review under the Bill.

Mr. Jenkins: As I have said, the operation of any Act, not just this legislation, is not a matter for me, or whoever else is Home Secretary. To some extent we have dealt with this matter specifically. We have provided for the publication or distribution of written matter in a public place and in a public way having regard to all the circumstances. That is not the exact wording, but it amounts to that.
We shall keep the working of the Act under review, as we have reviewed legislation in the past. We shall see how effectively it operates. We believe that what we have done does not infringe the freedom of speech and does not get the balance wrong, but makes a substantial advance towards having a more effective law in this respect.

12 noon.

Mr. Stokes: I support the amendment of my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Beaconsfield (Mr. Bell), which seeks to leave out Clause 70. I take this opportunity to say how much I and, I am sure, many others in the Chamber have admired my hon. and learned Friend's batting throughout the night and the wonderful number of boundaries that he has been hitting.
Undoubtedly this is the most dangerous clause in the Bill. Its effect on free


speech and on what is written is highly alarming and dangerous. The English, as the Home Secretary will appreciate with his great knowledge of history, used to be noted for being an outspoken race. We were often very rude to foreigners, especially to Spaniards and Frenchmen.

Mr. Flannery: We still are.

Mr. Stokes: We were sometimes rough with distinguished foreign visitors. However, all that, as I shall no doubt be told, is past, dead and gone. An Englishman's right today, in certain circumstances, is abolished at a stroke.
I shall give one example of the absurdity and the ludicrous nature of the clause. I am thinking of recent events and about the unfortunate English lady who has been captured in Uganda and who may or may not have been killed. If someone were to say something that was offensive about General Amin after the passing of this measure to which some Ugandan immigrants in this country took exception, he would face prosecution.
The possibilities for evil in this clause are limitless, but, because of the pressure of time, I shall not produce any more concrete examples. It is necessary only to think of foreign affairs across the world to realise how easy it would be to criticise leading statesmen in foreign countries from which there are large bodies of immigrants who regard those countries as their homelands.
Another serious aspect which has barely been touched on is the effect on our so-called free Press. I am thinking not so much of the London newspapers as of the local newspapers. I am bound to tell the Home Secretary—no doubt he has much of this evidence himself—that I receive a tremendous number of letters from those living in areas of high immigrant concentration, where, unfortunately, crimes are sometimes committed but seldom, if ever, mentioned by the local newspapers for fear of prosecution under one of these intolerant measures.

Mr. Flannery: Mr. Flanneryrose—

Mr. Stokes: I want to get on. Old ladies and others are threatened in the sort of area I have mentioned. Very often they dare not tell their Member of Parliament or the police. As my hon. and learned Friend the Member for

Beaconsfield said, very often when they write to us they dare not supply their name and address.

Mrs. Renée Short: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Mr. Stokes: No. I am very sorry, but I want to get on.

Mrs. Renée Short: Will he tell us the MPs?

Mr. Stokes: I am afraid that a blanket of silence will descend on anyone or anything in any way connected with immigration after the passing of the Bill. No doubt that is partly the reasoning behind the Bill. I am certain that gradually the freedom of speech and the freedom of the Press that we have so jealously preserved and valued over the centuries will be whittled away.

Mr. Flannery: Mr. Flannery rose—

Mr. Stokes: No, I shall not give way.
I never very much cared for Milton's politics, being always a Royalist, but if he were alive today he might have something to say about the clause. I believe in all sincerity—I am delighted that the Home Secretary, on perhaps one of the last occasions, is in the Chamber listening to me—that the clause betrays the whole of our past and gravely threatens our future freedom.

Mr. Bidwell: I shall be as brief as possible. I understand that the House will wish me to take that course. At the same time, I hope that the House will be patient and courteous.
When I first became a Member, in 1966, I became engaged in bringing the first test case under Section 6 of the Race Relations Act 1965. I well remember the trial of a young man aged 17. He was the last child in a large family from Tipperary. He was working for one of the psychopathic Fascist, racist groups He was involved in smashing the windows of my home on two occasions and sticking leaflets on the door stating, "Blacks Not Wanted Here".
Subsequently the matter went to trial and he was found guilty under the Act. On appeal the conviction was quashed. I have since taken an interest in the wording of the Act, and I am ultra-anxious about the possibilities of achieving greater success with the clause with


which we are dealing. I accept that my amendment might not fit the bill, or might go much wider than is desirable.
I ask my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary to pay particular heed—I do not know whether he has quite taken on board what we have been driving at—to cause and effect, or whether race hatred has been stirred up. It is necessary that we bear in mind some of the psychopathic literature that we see from time to time, some of which is especially disturbing. It was the issuing of that sort of literature that took me to Red Lion Square to take part in a demonstration against the National Front. I was concerned about the production of obnoxious leaflets and their distribution to schoolchidren.
Having considered the matter with the Director of Public Prosecutions, the Attorney-General took the view that he could not act. Then a leaflet was issued from another obscure corner of the woodpile depicting three turbaned Sikhs who were made to appear to be particularly hideous characters, whereas normally they are very handsome men. The leaflet purported to show the three Sikhs plotting to take over Britain.
We must also bear in mind the slogans that appear in the streets. For example, in Brixton young black people born in this country are confronted with obnoxious slogans such as "Niggers Go Home" and "Blacks Not Wanted Here". The Fascist racist chant on the march reminds one of the chant of the Mosleyites prior to the war—namely, "The Yids, the Yids, we've got to get rid of the Yids".
The introduction of the 1965 Act emanated from attacks on synagogues. The hallmark and stock in trade of the Fascists who prey upon the colour question is basically anti-Semitism. Therefore, many of us plead guilty to being over-anxious. We took a major step in 1965, but this is a different part of our law. Slander and libel take away freedom of expression.
We are stepping out to build a multiracial society to ensure that racism is driven into the gutter where it belongs, We do not want to leave it to the counter-demonstrations by our liberal idealists and Young Socialists to be in the van of that. We expect a Labour

Government's law to be strong enough to drive it into the gutter where it belongs.

Mr. Whitelaw: I rise to thank the Home Secretary for responding to the various points we made about putting this clause into the Public Order Act. We believe that to be right. I would not advise my right hon. and hon. Friends to support the amendment in the name of my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Beaconsfield (Mr. Bell), but I would advise them to press Amendment No. 25.

Mr. Stanley Newens: The hon. and learned Member for Beaconsfield (Mr. Bell) opposes Clause 70 on the ground that it limits the freedom of expression of individuals. Amendment No. 25 would have the effect of removing any legal sanction against incitement to racial hatred. The hon. and learned Gentleman should, therefore, be very clear that he is asking for recognition of the freedom to incite racial hatred as a fundamental right of any citizen. That is an extremely dangerous policy.
The hon. and learned Gentleman accuses the Left of availing itself of the right to stir up hatred against particular social groups. The Left has never aimed its propaganda against the features of the members of any social group where those features comprise a genetic endowment. Members of social groups can change the features about which the Left has been concerned. People cannot, however, change the colour of their skin or their racial endowments. It is, therefore, extremely evil to allow incitement of racial hatred to be regarded as a right, because it represents a denial of the freedom of other sections of the community.
It is total nonsense to suggest, as the hon. Member for Halesowen and Stour-bridge (Mr. Stokes) suggested, that General Amin would be protected by the clause. That is not the intention of those who support the clause.
Incitement to racial hatred leads to violence. The hon. and learned Member for Beaconsfield and some of his lion. Friends have made clear how strongly they oppose violence. If they oppose violence they must oppose the causes of violence. One of the actual and potential causes of violence in this country is racial hatred. For that reason, we must


oppose the incitement of racial hatred, and I hope that the House will make it clear how strongly it supports Clause 70.

Amendment negatived.

Amendment made: No. 24, in page 45, line 3, at beginning insert—
'(1) The Public Order Act 1936 shall be amended in accordance with the following provisions of this section.
(2) After section 5 there shall be inserted the following section:—

Division No. 231.]
AYES
[12.14 a.m.


Alison, Michael
Moate, Roger
Wall, Patrick


Biggs-Davison, John
Molyneaux, James
Whitelaw, Rt Hon William


Brotherton, Michael
Neubert, Michael



Dean, Paul (N Somerset)
Page, Rt Hon R. Graham (Crosby)
TELLERS FOR THE AYES:


Fraser, Rt Hon H. (Stafford &amp; St)
Parkinson, Cecil
Mr John Corrie and


Mayhew, Patrick
Rossi, Hugh (Hornsey)
Mr Spencer Le Marchant


Miller, Hal (Bromsgrove)
Steel, David (Roxburgh)





NOES


Anderson, Donald
Hooley, Frank
Reid, George


Atkinson, Norman
Jay, Rt Hon Douglas
Robinson, Geoffrey


Bates, Alf
Jenkins, Hugh (Putney)
Roderick, Caerwyn


Bean, R. E.
Jenkins, Rt Hon Roy (Stechford)
Rodgers, William (Stockton)


Bidwell, Sydney
John, Brynmor
Ross, Stephen (Isle of Wight)


Blenkinsop, Arthur
Johnson, James (Hull West)
Short, Mrs Renée (Wolv NE)


Booth, Rt Hon Albert
Judd, Frank
Silkin, Rt Hon S. C. (Dulwich)


Callaghan, Jim (Middleton &amp; P)
Kerr, Russell
Skinner, Dennis


Carter-Jones, Lewis
Kinnock, Neil
Snape, Peter


Cocks, Michael (Bristol S)
Latham, Arthur (Paddington)
Stoddart, David


Coleman, Donald
Lestor, Miss Joan (Eton &amp; Slough)
Summerskill, Hon Dr Shirley


Colquhoun, Ms Maureen
Lipton, Marcus
Thomas, Ron (Bristol NW)


Cook, Robin F. (Edin C)
Lyons, Edward (Bradford W)
Tierney, Sydney


Corbett, Robin
McElhone, Frank
Tinn, James


Crowther, Stan (Rotherham)
Mackenzie, Gregor
Tomlinson, John


Cryer, Bob
Madden, Max
Walker, Harold (Doncaster)


Dormand, J. D.
Miller, Mrs Millie (Ilford N)
Walker, Terry (Kingswood)


Edwards, Robert (Wolv SE)
Moonman, Eric
Ward, Michael


Ellis, John (Brigg &amp; Scun)
Morris, Alfred (Wythenshawe)
Watkinson, John


Flannery, Martin
Newens, Stanley
White, Frank R. (Bury)


Foot, Rt Hon Michael
O'Halloran, Michael
Wise, Mrs Audrey


George, Bruce
Palmer, Arthur
Wrigglesworth, Ian


Grant, John (Islington C)
Parker, John
Young, David (Bolton E)


Grocott, Bruce
Pavitt, Laurie



Hamilton, James (Bothwell)
Pendry, Tom
TELLERS FOR THE NOES:


Harrison, Walter (Wakefield)
Radice, Giles
Mr A W Stallard and


Hayman, Mrs Helene
Rees, Rt Hon Merlyn (Leeds S)
Mr Thomas Cox

Question accordingly negatived.

Amendments made: No. 27, in page 45, line 11 after 'Subsection (1)' insert 'above'.

No. 28, in page 45, line 28 after 'Subsection (1)' insert 'above'.

No. 29, in page 46 leave out lines 2 and 3.

No. 30, in page 46, line 8 at end insert—
'"racial group" means a group of persons defined by reference to colour, race, nationality or ethnic or national origins, and in this definition "nationality" includes citizenship;',

No. 31, in page 46, line 10 at end insert—
'(3) In section 7(2), after the words "section 5" there shall be inserted the words 'or 5A".'.—[Mr. Roy Jenkins.]

Incitement to racial hatred. 5A "—[Mr. Roy Jenkins.]

Amendment proposed: No. 25, in page 45, line 8, leave out from 'where' to 'be' in line 9 and insert
'it is his intention that hatred shall'.—[Mr. Whitelaw.]

Question put, That the amendment be made:—

The House divided: Ayes 16, Noes 77.

12.23 p.m.

Mr. Roy Jenkins: I beg to move, That the Bill be now read the Third time.

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Bryant Godman Irvine): I have to inform the House that the reasoned amendment in the name of the hon. Member for Torbay (Sir F. Bennett) has not been selected.

Mr. Jenkins: The hon. and learned Member for Beasonsfield (Mr. Bell) held out the attractive proposition to me that he would speak for only as long as I spoke. I am afraid, therefore, that I must make my remarks, even on this important occasion, extremely truncated.
We have had a long debate on Report following a substantial Committee stage. We have got the Bill through and I think that that is worth while. I do not


think that anyone, in view of our debates this week, could accuse the House of ignoring the subjects of immigration or race relations, difficult and delicate though they are at present.
I believe that this Bill is worth while. I have never pretended that legislation could deal with the whole problem of race relations, but it is an essential part of the framework. There have been some differences between the official Opposition and myself on points of detail, but it should be reorganised outside the House that the broad thrust of the Bill is supported by the Opposition Front Bench and a majority of the Conservative Party. Those who do not take that view are a small minority of the House.
I thank my hon. Friends for their sustained and mostly silent support through a long and arduous sitting. In the past 20 hours. we have done something worth while.

12.25 p.m.

Mr. Whitelaw: I apologise to the House in advance for doing something I have not done before in asking whether it will be reasonable to leave immediately after I have said a few words. I am already several hours late for an interesting sporting engagement in Southport. I hope that it will be understood if I proceed to it.
We have had considerable debate on this Bill and, as the right hon. Gentleman said, there have been some differences on detail. We are disappointed that we did not manage to change the Government's mind on the issue of clubs and incitement to racial hatred. We think that the Bill would have been better if our amendments had been accepted.
We had some doubts about the effectiveness of the legislation and we had some doubts about the 1968 Act, but we did not oppose it then. I understand the feelings of my hon. Friends who do not share my views and who feel that they must vote against the Third Reading. They will have to justify their position as individuals. I do not believe that it would be possible for us as a party to justify such a decision. It would be liable to grave misrepresentation whatever our view on the details.
We shall not vote against the Third Reading. Although we have doubts

about the Bill, we hope that it will have some success.

12.28 p.m.

Mr. Ronald Bell: I tempted the Home Secretary by saying that I would speak for only 40 seconds. However, he exceeded that time, so perhaps I may also go a few seconds over.
We have had long debates all through the night. It has been impossible in speaking on the amendments not to canvass and re-canvass the essential issues of principle. I felt that it would be an abuse of the time of the House in a Third Reading speech to recapitulate those objections of principle which every hon. Member knows I hold.
I take this opportunity of reasserting those basic objections to this form of legislation. I consider it my duty not to allow any fear of being misunderstood to prevent my dividing the House.

12.29 p.m.

Mr. Stokes: The whole concept of this Bill would be absurd if it were not so dangerous. It follows the Sex Discrimination Act, which was almost as absurd, if not quite so dangerous.
Discrimination is, after all, part of human nature. We all exercise it almost every moment of our lives, and it cannot be abolished as if by magic by an Act of Parliament. Discrimination is an essential part of a person's individual freedom—freedom to marry whom he wishes, until the State tells him whom he can marry; freedom to make friends, to have business partners and to join any clubs and take part in sports with whom he wishes. The Bill confers new rights on immigrants and will therefore inevitably cause new grievances. In future some people are to be more equal than others.
When tonight and tomorrow morning millions of English people read what has happened in the House today—and we claim to represent them—they will be amazed and furious when they realise that further burdens are to he placed on their backs by the Bill, which is grossly unfair to them. No wonder many foreigners think that we are mad in our attitude to immigration.
I object to much of the wording of the Bill, which I consider to be un-English. I wish that the late hon. Member for Oxford University, A. P. Herbert, were


here to tear some of the words to pieces. Even the word "ambience" appears in Clause 5. That is a piece of nonsense.
The Bill strikes at the freedom of the individual and will further diminish respect for the rule of law. Freedom is everywhere threatened in the Bill—freedom for trades and professions, freedom for schools and colleges, freedom for clubs and, above all, freedom to speak and write. Magna Carta, which we have been celebrating jointly with our American cousins recently, is to be thrown on the scrap heap and replaced by Karl Marx. In place of choice for certain persons in this country, in certain circumstances we are to be forced by law to prefer an immigrant whether we like him or not.
The Bill goes against all our history in this once proud and independent nation. If Shakespeare were alive today, he would have to re-write the whole of John of Gaunt's famous speech. I hope that some of my hon. Friends will join me in the Lobby against the Bill, for now our party alone is the party that can protect the freedom of ordinary people.

12.34 p.m.

Mr. Patrick Wall: It has been a long night and I have not intervened in the debates because I have no specialist knowledge as have my hon. Friends who have done much excellent work. On Third Reading one has the right to express briefly one's views which I believe are the views of the man in the street. They are that the Bill is bad and will be of no help to race relations. [HON. MEMBERS: "The hon. Gentleman has been away all night." If hon. Members look at the voting record in Hansard, they will see that I was here most of the night.
When I first came to the House a number of years ago, if I recall aright, I was a sponsor of a Bill introduced by Lord Brockway, who initiated this form of legislation. I supported it because I disliked discrimination and was proud of the Commonwealth. But now I realise that this kind of preventive legislation will not work. I will give just one example—the employer who was taken to court by the Race Relations Board because he would not employ an Irishman after the Birmingham bombings.
The Bill fails because it restricts free speech and because it gives an oppor-

tunity for busybodies to interfere. The Bill undermines the rights of British people in matters such as the running of clubs. I believe that all British citizens are equal before the law, and that principle is not helped by the Bill.

12.36 p.m.

Mrs. Renée Short: Hon. Members who have not been sitting through the long hours of the debates on the Bill, having heard the hon. Member for Halesowen and Stourbridge (Mr. Stokes), will have had a sample of the type of speeches to which most of us have had to listen.
I am pleased that we have now got this legislation through, and the whole of the country will see that the Labour Government are now the vanguard in the fight against racialism and incitement to violence on those grounds. I am glad that in the future we shall be vigilant against those who attempt to stir up violence against a section of the community. Violence and hatred against a section of the community are violence and hatred against the whole community and all working people.
When we campaign for resources and help for those areas where there is a large concentration of people from the New Commonwealth, we campaign for all our people and for improvement in the standard of living of all working people. I am glad that the Bill is through and I hope that the Opposition will not take too badly that certain of their hon. Friends have let their side down.

12.37 p.m.

Mr. Hugh Rossi: I have not so far intervened in the discussions on the Bill.

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Myer Galpern): The hon. Member for Hornsey was not here for the whole of the evening.

Mr. Rossi: I may not have been in the Chamber when you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, were in the Chair, but I was here until well after midnight and I was back again before eight o'clock this morning. With all due respect to you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, although you did not happen to be in the Chair at the time, I was present in the Chamber. Your remarks should not be construed as an attempt to deter me from speaking. That is my right.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: I assure the hon. Gentleman that my remark was in no


sense a reprimand for his absence, but when he opened his remarks by saying that this was the first time he had intervened, I thought that he obviously could not do that if he were not here.

Mr. Rossi: I had many opportunities to intervene and, with respect, Mr. Deputy Speaker, I consider your remarks totally uncalled for. I may take note that on future occasions I might use my right to speak with greater frequency.
I shall turn to matters of some importance. I did not intervene earlier, although the Bill is a matter that concerns me and my constituency to a great extent. Some hon. Members will know that within my constituency there are about 14,000 people from what is termed the new Commonwealth. There are about 5,000 from Cyprus and about 5,000 from Southern Ireland, who also fall within the terms of the Bill. I have over the years, therefore, gained some idea of the problems attendant upon immigration and race relations. I have obtained that knowledge from both sides, as it were, of this particularly difficult and sensitive problem. I have sought, so far as I have been able in my own way as a Member representing my constituency, to do whatever was within my power to keep race relations cool, and I feel that I have to some extent been successful in that matter.
I have moved among and frequently and consistently consulted members of the immigrant groups, as I am sure that any hon. Member who represents a constituency similar to mine will have done. Clearly, resentment exists. There is no doubt that considerable resentment exists on the part of the indigenous residents of the area.

Mr. Dennis Skinner: You are not pure white either.

Mr. Rossi: I shall come to that. If the hon. Gentleman wishes to make racialist remarks he can rely upon parliamentary privilege to protect him, and no doubt his hon. Friends will have noted that. [Interruption.] The more I am interrupted, the longer this will take.
I was saying that resentment exists amongst the indigenous population as people see whole areas of the locality being taken over by newcomers. I think that that resentment would exist irres-

pective of questions of race or colour, intense problems of housing arise, and resentment is expressed and felt as the original inhabitants of the area see more and more homes being taken up by newcomers in an area of great housing stress. There are also great problems in schools, where educational difficulties arise. These feelings exist, and no amount of legislation of the kind contained in the Bill will do anything to remove them.
The immigrants themselves feel a great deal of resentment. Many of them came here as the result of advertisements and recruitment by London Transport and by what is now the Department of Health and Social Security, because without them there was a time when London Transport and our hospital service could not have operated. Consequently, when the immigrants who came here on that basis feel that they are being disadvantaged in any way there is great and deep resentment on their part.
I believe firmly and fervently that once immigrants are in this country they should be given every right that is given to every other citizen and be treated equally in every way. The problem with which the Bill does not deal is the continual reception of immigrants. That is where the real problem lies, and it is by an end to immigration that we can perhaps make the greatest contribution to race relations, but for that the Bill does absolutely nothing.
The Bill seeks to deal with the problem in a particular way in that in one clause it speaks of job opportunity. What is souring race relations to a great extent at the moment is the lack of job opportunities for the children born in this country of immigrant parents. They go through our school system and end with O and A levels but then find that there is no outlet for the level of education that they have acquired, and that only dead-end jobs are open to them.
I do not know to what extent the Home Secretary has had discussions on this matter with employers' representatives—

Mrs. Renée Short: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Can you give the House some guidance? I am under the impression that everything that the hon. Gentleman is now saying was said yesterday afternoon between about 4.30 p.m. and 5 o'clock by other speakers from the


Opposition Benches. Must all the arguments be rehearsed?

Mr. Alison: Further to that point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. This is the Government's responsibility. If they want to have the House sitting at one o'clock on a Friday afternoon discussing the Race Relations Bill, they cannot object to my hon. Friend expressing his opinion. I speak as one who, as the right hon. Gentleman knows, enjoyed being here all night. If the Government wish the Bill to be debated on Third Reading at one o'clock on a Friday afternoon instead of dealing with the European business, hon. Members should allow my hon. Friend to be heard. He is only taking advantage of the opportunity that the Government have given him to express his view.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: So long as hon. Members who take part in the Third Reading debate are within the scope of the Bill they are in order. They may repeat things, but that is almost inevitable.

Mr. Bob Cryer: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Is it in order for a Member on the Opposition Front Bench to talk about delays to the Bill and try to place the blame on the Government when it is known that the delay is due entirely to the racist fringe within the Conservative Party which hour after hour, has attempted to stifle and delay the legislation on the basis of a racial attitude? The Opposition Front Bench has lost control of its Members—

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. That is not a point of order.

Mr. Rossi: Thank you, Mr. Deputy Speaker.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I think that if the hon. Member addresses his remarks to me there might be fewer interventions.

Mr. Rossi: I do not mind turning my back on the Benches opposite, in view of the way that some hon. Gentlemen are behaving.
What I was seeking to do, Mr. Deputy Speaker, and of course you will call me to order if my remarks are not relevant to the matters in the Bill, was to address myself to a particular problem facing a large number of my constituents. I am referring to the lack of job opportunities

for many of my constituents who have achieved certain levels of education and now find themselves without the outlets for their knowledge. They find themselves having to go into dead-end jobs. It is that which will exacerbate race relations more than anything else that we have been discussing, and it is an important matter that the House should consider, if only for a few moments.
The Bill establishes a commission that will lay down a code of practice. I was here to debate an amendment dealing with that, but it was not called. I therefore raise the matter now. The code of practice is said to be laid down to deal with matters of job opportunity. Had that amendment been called—

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. The amendment was not called because it was not selected by Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Rossi: I am obliged, Mr. Deputy Speaker. However, it is on the Amendment Paper. No matter—it was not discussed. I should have liked to ask the Minister how this code of practice can help in solving this problem. That is why I was asking him what discussions the Home Secretary has had with, for example, the big bankers on the recruitment of immigrant children educated in the country up to A and O level standard, to see whether they would be prepared to ensure that job opportunities exist for them. The same goes for the large insurance companies and also for the professions. What is the position with regard to the acceptance of articled clerks into my profession, for example, from this group of our citizens? I am not aware whether any discussions have taken place with the professional bodies concerned.
Such a discussion between the Government and the relevant bodies would be of greater assistance than a code of practice to be laid down by a commission. That is subject to whatever is envisaged in the code of practice. On that I should have liked some assistance from the Minister, because it is a matter of great concern to many of my constituents.
I have one criticism of the Home Office. It does not give all the help it could give to the local authority reception areas where there is the greatest concentration of immigrants, and particularly


during the crisis in Cyprus in the summer of 1974 the refusal of the Home Office to treat the Cypriots coming to this country as refugees meant that the whole burden of about 800 to 1,000 families—4,000 to 5,000 people—fell entirely upon the slender resources of my local authority.
If the Government are concerned about race relations, there is a need to have a co-ordinating body between local authorities and the various Government Departments concerned to ensure that there are the facilities for reception and that the necessary economic and other aid will be given to the local authorities which suddenly have thrust upon them the problem of dealing with large numbers of immigrants arriving in a crisis situation.
I hope that the Government will consider that matter, because it is not discussed in the Bill.
Just one further point in conclusion. I am prompted to say this by a comment which was made by the hon. Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner) who is no longer here.

Mr. Newens: He was here all night, though, unlike the hon. Gentleman.

Mr. Rossi: The hon. Member for Bolsover threw at me the remarks—"You are not white either". I have a very dark skin, but I am not ashamed of saying that my origins are from Italy. I am first-born in this country. I think that to a certain extent I have possibly experienced some of the problems that immigrants and immigrant families have in establishing themselves in a new country. I think that their desire more than anything else is to put down roots, to find a home for themselves, and to have a job by means of which they can feed and clothe themselves. Beyond that, they want to live in peace and to let live in peace.
I will do anything that I can to assist in maintaining good race relations. I do not think that the Bill really helps. It is a piece of Government window dressing. It does not change the minds and hearts of people. It lays down certain rules which are unobjectionable in parts and highly objectionable in others. My right hon. Friend the Member for Pen-

rith and The Border (Mr. Whitelaw) put the matter entirely in perspective.
My experience shows that the British people are the most tolerant in the world to new immigrants. I do not think that there is any country, apart perhaps from the United States of America, where the opportunities exist and have existed down the centuries for new immigrants on the scale that they do in this country. I owe my being here in the House to the opportunities in education, and so on, that this country has given me, and I am deeply grateful. I want to see that others whom we have seen fit to receive obtain the same opportunities as I have in this country. I do not think that it is necessary for legislation to achieve that.
There are on the fringes of our society the prejudiced, the biased.

Mr. Giles Radice: Hear, hear.

Mr. Arthur Latham: And the hon. Member's party.

Mr. Rossi: It exists within the party of the hon. Member for Paddington (Mr. Latham). The hon. Member for Chester-le-Street (Mr. Radice), who has interrupted me, has origins similar to my own and, therefore, he should resent equally the racist interjection of the hon. Member for Bolsover, which proves that there is racial prejudice—probably muted, probably under cover, but nevertheless there—amongst fringes of his own party and the supporters of his party.

Mr. Newens: What the hon. Member has just said in accusing my hon. Friend the Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner) of racism is utterly disgraceful. My hon. Friend was here all night and voted in favour of this measure. That an hon. Member who is not prepared to vote for this measure should have the impertinence to accuse my hon. Friend of racism is disgraceful.

Mr. Rossi: No doubt the remark that the hon. Member for Bolsover addressed to me is on the record and it will be there for posterity to see, for what it is worth. I withdraw nothing of what I have said.
There is just one other matter that I want to raise with the Minister. Will the Bill be directed not only against people


who incite hatred against people of colour but also against immigrants who incite racial hatred among their fellows? Some people seeking power within their own immigrant groups use colour and race in an inverse fashion to attain that power. Such evil people are as equally responsible for racial tension as white people who express resentment against coloured people.
In other words, I hope that we shall not have a dual standard and that the Bill, when it becomes an Act, will be applied equally and impartially against all people who incite hatred. It is important to ensure that the people we have admitted to our country live in harmony together and with us.

Division No. 232.]
AYES
[10 p.m.


Anderson, Donald
Hooley, Frank
Reid, George


Atkinson, Norman
Jay, Rt Hon Douglas
Richardson, Miss Jo


Barnett, Rt Hon Joel (Heywood)
Jenkins, Hugh (Putney)
Robinson, Geoffrey


Bales, Alf
Jenkins, Rt Hon Roy (Stechford)
Roderick, Caerwyn


Bean, R. E.
John, Brynmor
Rodgers, William (Stockton)


Bidwell, Sydney
Johnson, Walter (Derby S)
Ross, Stephen (Isle of Wight)


Blenkinsop, Arthur
Johnston, Russell (Inverness)
Short, Mrs Renée (Wolv NE)


Callaghan, Rt Hon J. (Cardiff SE)
Judd, Frank
Silkin, Rt Hon S. C. (Dulwich)


Carter-Jones, Lewis
Kaufman, Gerald
Skinner, Dennis


Cocks, Michael (Bristol S)
Kerr, Russell
Stoddart, David


Coleman, Donald
Kinnock, Neil
Summerskill, Hon Dr Shirley


Colquhoun, Ms Maureen
Latham, Arthur (Paddington)
Thomas, Ron (Bristol NW)


Cook, Robin F. (Edin C)
Lee, John
Tierney, Sydney


Corbett, Robin
Lestor, Miss Joan (Eton &amp; Slough)
Tinn, James


Cox, Thomas (Tooting)
Lipton, Marcus
Tomlinson, John


Crowther, Stan (Rotherham)
Lyons, Edward (Bradford W)
Varley, Rt Hon Eric G.


Cryer, Bob
Mackenzie, Gregor
Walker, Harold (Doncaster)


Dormand, J. D.
Madden, Max
Walker, Terry (Kingswood)


Edwards, Robert (Wolv SE)
Miller, Mrs Millie (Ilford N)
Ward, Michael


Ellis, John (Brigg &amp; Scun)
Moonman, Eric
Watkinson, John


Flannery, Martin
Morris, Alfred (Wythenshawe)
White, Frank R. (Bury)


Foot, Rt Hon Michael
Newens, Stanley
Whitehead, Phillip


George, Bruce
O'Halloran, Michael
Wise, Mrs Audrey


Graham, Ted
Palmer, Arthur
Wrigglesworth, Ian


Grant, John (Islington C)
Parker, John
Young, David (Bolton E)


Grocott, Bruce
Pavirt, Laurie



Hamilton, James (Bothwell)
Pendry, Tom
TELLERS FOR THE AYES:


Harrison, Walter (Wakefield)
Radice, Giles
Mr. Peter Snape and


Hayman, Mrs Helene
Rees, Rt Hon Merlyn (Leeds S)
Mr. A. W. Stallard.




NOES


Brotherton, Michael


Molyneaux, James


Stokes, John


TELLERS FOR THE NOES


Mr. Ronald Bell and


Mr.John Page.

Question accordingly agreed to.

Bill read the Third time, and passed.

RATING (CHARITY SHOPS) BILL [Lords]

Order for Second Reading read.

Motion made, and Question put forth-with pursuant to Standing Order No. 66, That the Bill be now read a Second time.

Question agreed to.

Bill accordingly read a Second time.

Mr. John Page: If hon. Members opposite will hear me out in silence, I shall take less than 15 seconds.
I did not have the opportunity of serving on the Standing Committee. I have been in the Chamber throughout the debate and during the whole of last night. Every speech I have heard from my Front Bench and hon. Friends and every speech I have heard in reply from the Government has convinced me that the Bill will do more harm than good and is a total insult to the British people.

Question put, That the Bill be now read the Third time:—

The House divided: Ayes 82, Noes 3.

Bill committed to a Standing Committee pursuant to Standing Order No. 40 (Committal of Bills).

DEVELOPMENT OF RURAL WALES BILL [Lords]

Ordered,
That notwithstanding the proviso to Standing Order No. 62 (Nomination of Standing Committees) any Standing Committee appointed for the consideration of the Development of Rural Wales Bill [Lords] shall consist of Sixteen Members including not less than Fourteen Members sitting for constituencies in Wales.—[Mr. Walter Harrison.]

PROCEDURE

Ordered,
That the matters of the procedure for establishing the order of oral questions, the order of precedence of Private Members' Bills, the method of raising points of order during divisions, the calling of second amendments and the voting on Opposition Motions on Supply days be referred to the Sessional Committee on Procedure.—[Mr. Walter Harrison.]

HANDICAPPED CHILDREN

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Frank R. White.]

1.11 p.m.

Mr. Bob Cryer: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. The hon. Member for the Isle of Ely (Mr. Freud) has abandoned a very important debate on the mentally handicapped. My hon. Friend the Member for Thornaby (Mr. Wrigglesworth) has taken advantage of the same subject. However, the hon. Member for Isle of Ely gave no indication—

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Myer Galpern): The hon. Member did come to me during the night to tell me that he had an important engagement at St. Andrew's University. He was quite happy that the debate would go on nevertheless. He was most apologetic about missing it. so it is unfair to criticise him on that score.

1.12 p.m.

Mr. Ian Wrigglesworth: I can understand the feelings of my hon. Friend the Member for Keighley (Mr. Cryer) because he had the Adjournment

for Friday and he would have welcomed the opportunity to be in my position now. Had I known earlier, I could have approached him, but I hope that he will have the opportunity to raise his subject in the near future.
It is an unexpected pleasure for me to have this opportunity to address the House on the plight of handicapped children. It is an unexpected pleasure because it gives me an opportunity to relieve the pent-up frustration I felt throughout the night as I sat on the Bench as a PPS at the Home Office unable to say anything, despite feeling many times that I should like to do so.
This is a very important issue and we do not have the opportunity to discuss it much in the House. I felt that it was too important a subject to let it go by default. I do not wish to appear carping in any of the things I say, because the Government have a very good record on handicapped children. Indeed, their record is good in the whole of provision of services for the disabled.
We have on the Front Bench the first Minister with a responsibility for the disabled in the history of this country. My hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State is a member of the co-operative movement and he has done a tremendous amount of work for the disabled. The Co-operative Parliamentary Group is proud of the work he has done.
We know that new cash benefits have been introduced and that other benefits have been increased at an unprecedented rate. We have attendance allowances, mobility allowances and non-contributory invalidity pensions. A sum of £12 million has been given to us from the Rowntree Trust in connection with family projects. These are all policies for the disabled of which we can all be rightly proud.
My own interest in this subject stems to a large degree from my experience with the Teesside Disablement Group and with the Advisory Body for the Chronically Sick and Disabled in Cleveland County. Some 18 months ago, when the Minister came to open the Blenheim House Home for the Handicapped, we had fruitful discussions with the advisory body as a result of which I have raised a number of these matters in the House. The advisory body represents a number of groups, such as multiple sclerosis, spina


bifida and others. There are 72,000 handicapped people in the county and their interests are constantly being cared for.
There is very little warning given to a family that suddenly finds itself with a handicapped child in its midst. It is an enormous blow to the family concerned. That family needs help in adjusting itself to the situation of coping with a handicapped child.
I have experience of a family in my constituency of Thornaby who came to see me at one of my surgeries. That family and its example gave me back my faith in human nature. Its example underlines the capacity of parents and families to hold together against great hardship. This brings out the best in people in facing up to the difficulties of family life in extremely difficult circumstances.
The one area in which help can be given to families is where early diagnosis can be made. I hope that the Minister will be able to say what action the Government have been able to take in helping to assist the medical and other services, and indeed families, in identifying children in these categories so that immediate provision can be made to give them assistance.
One of the ways in which a handicapped child can be helped is by the provision of early assistance once the handicap has been identified through the social services. The health services can be brought in immediately to give assistance. If that assistance is not provided at an early stage, a family will not be able to make all the advances necessary to be able to resign itself to the situation. Opportunities must not be lost, because ground once lost is difficult to regain.
I hope that the Minister will be able to give us the Government's views and to say what action can be taken to give early assistance to handicapped children and their families. It is very important that we stop the child and the family from being isolated from the community by the enormous amount of time and effort which has to be put into caring for a handicapped child.
I will not go into the recommendations of the Warnock Committee on Special Education. My view tends to be in favour of integration with the community,

with community groups and with the school service, and not to isolate handicapped children and their families from those groups. I want to see them integrated as much as they possibly can be. I should like the Minister to say in what ways the Government can help in this and what views they have on the recommendations of the Warnock Committee, and on other provisions for helping the handicapped child and the family to be more closely integrated with the society around them.
Next, I should like the Minister to say a few words, if he can, about the take-up rate of the benefits, some of which I have mentioned. It has been made clear to me by the advisory body in Cleveland that there is a need for action here, because some handicapped children and their families are not aware of the benefits available to them.
Indeed, the advisory body wrote to me a little while ago and asked me to take action with the Minister in order to make available a supply of leaflets, so that they themselves, through all the different age groups, could make them available, and so that people could find out about the provisions available to them. The Minister, happily, was able to do that, and I know that was much appreciated.
One of the other features the group pointed out—this is the fifth point on which I hope the Minister will comment—was the need for a better co-ordination of services and provisions for handicapped children and their families and, indeed, for other handicapped people. In particular, there is a need for better coordination between the social and health services and the Department of Employment which provides a whole range of facilities for handicapped people.
As my hon. Friend knows, I wrote to my right hon. Friend the Member for Huyton (Sir H. Wilson) about this. He replied:
I know you will understand that I am not unsympathetic to the points that have been raised with you.
That is by the advisory body.
There is, I am sure, need for more effective co-ordination of services and I hope that I have indicated some of the ways in which I believe we can expect to see improvement.
That letter was written to me by the former Prime Minister some little time


ago. I should be grateful for any progress report the Minister can give to me about the steps that he has taken and that the Government have been able to take to help in the better co-ordination of services.
One further matter which I have raised with the Minister previously, on which he might like to comment, is the work done by the Voluntary Council for Handicapped Children. My hon. Friend might remember that I tabled some Questions to him last year about the work of this council. He stressed in his reply to me that the Department had agreed to provide both financial help and advice and to maintain close contact with the council. I believe that my hon. Friend addressed the council and discussed with it ways in which the Government could give assistance. Again, I should be grateful if my hon. Friend could comment on progress in that respect.
I have raised a number of issues which are, I think, of crucial importance to the welfare of handicapped children in the community and the families of handicapped children in the community. I look forward to hearing the Minister's comments on these points.

1.23 p.m.

The Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Security (Mr. Alfred Morris): As I know you will appreciate, Mr. Deputy Speaker, with all your concern for the subject, I was very glad when I heard last week that the hon. Member for Isle of Ely (Mr. Freud) had won an Adjournment debate to discuss the welfare of handicapped children. I know that he and his wife take a keen personal interest in the problems of handicapped children and have done so over many years.
The hon. Gentleman has had to leave the House in order to meet an engagement in Dundee. He informed me of his difficulties, and I am grateful to him for having taken so much trouble to explain why he could not be here for his debate. I know that the hon. Member will be as happy as I was to learn that the debate has been "saved" by my hon. Friend the Member for Thornaby (Mr. Wrigglesworth) having successfully submitted the same subject to Mr. Speaker earlier this morning.
My hon. Friend also takes a keen personal interest in the welfare of handicapped children. His speech was one of deep understanding of their problems, and I warmly congratulate him on the remarkable spontaneity of his advocacy in opening the debate. He does superb work for his disabled constituents and their families in Thornaby, and, indeed, for the disabled all over the county of Cleveland. He made a kindly reference to my visit to his constituency to open Blenheim House last year. I was delighted to be with my hon. Friend because I know that his concern for disabled children and their families is very deep and sincere.
Before I proceed to reply to my hon. Friend the Member for Thornaby I must emphasise that I shall be pleased to consider any point which the hon. Member for Isle of Ely may wish to pursue with me. My reply to my hon. Friend will cover many of the points that I know the hon. Member for Isle of Ely wished to raise. I shall be pleased to consider them further and write to the hon. Gentleman if he would like me to do so. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Education and Science would also be happy to give personal consideration to any points affecting handicapped children within his responsibility which the hon. Gentlemen may wish to pursue.
I turn to the subject of the debate. To have a handicapped child can impose severe strains on a family. I should like first, therefore, to say something about what I have been attempting to do as Minister responsible for the disabled to help these families.
Special cash provision for handicapped children is comparatively new but increasingly important. The attendance allowance was the first cash benefit to become payable. Today the allowance is being paid to the families of some 40,000 severely handicapped children. Our new mobility allowance will also soon become payable to handicapped children. Indeed, they will be the next age group to benefit and will receive the mobility allowance just as soon as we can phase them into the scheme.
We estimate that around 30,000 handicapped children aged under 16 will receive the mobility allowance. What is


more, all of these children will be receiving outdoor mobility help for the very first time. This is an important breakthrough in helping handicapped children not only in this country but internationally.
Mobility allowance and attendance allowance beneficiaries will overlap to some extent in that some handicapped children will receive both allowances. This means that, at the maximum, the families concerned will receive, at November 1976 rates of benefit £17·20 a week. This compares with nothing at all only six years ago. From the age of 16, the handicapped child can now also receive our new non-contributory invalidity pension which provides an additional £9.20 a week without any means test.
Money is not the answer to all the problems faced by disabled children and their families. It is clearly right, however, that we should seek to relieve the additional handicap of poverty which so often hits families with a severely handicapped child.
The Family Fund, which is administered for my Department by the Rowntree Trust, continues to provide another important source of help for families with severely disabled children. In its first three years the fund has helped over 23,000 such families, and already some of the needs highlighted by the Family Fund are beginning to be provided for by the new cash benefits and statute-based services. Yet the fund has so far assisted only half of the total number of families whom it believes to be eligible for and to need help. It has recently given fresh publicity to its rôle, aimed at families which are eligible for help but slow to apply. If hon. and right hon. Members feel able to help in publicising the availability of help from the fund, especially in areas of low take-up, I know that its administrators will be deeply appreciative.
The Family Fund is, of course, careful not to duplicate provision that can be made available to handicapped children and their families under the provisions of the Chronically Sick and Disabled Persons Act 1970 and other legislation.
Anyone who goes among the families of handicapped children, as I very often do, knows how highly they value not only the new cash benefits but also the aid that is given by local authorities

under Section 2 of the 1970 Act. My hon. Friend the Member for Thornaby referred to services, as well as cash benefits, and to the importance of both. There are many outstanding examples of children now being enabled to live with their families, instead of being hospitalised or otherwise institutionalised, by virtue of housing adaptations and other forms of help given by local authorities under the Act. So our new services are no less important than our new cash benefits to handicapped children and their families. Moreover, we must never underestimate the importance of getting right the balance of provision as between services and cash.
Looking to the future, my hon. Friend may be aware of the recent Sunningdale conference on the disabled. The purpose of the conference was not only to review existing provision but also to consider policy developments in this field. The conference was attended by Ministers and Members of Parliament, representatives of local authorities and voluntary bodies, academics, civil servants and others, including disabled people. It was an important and unique occasion. It was certainly the first occasion of its kind in this country, and. I suspect, in any country.
A number of significant proposals emerged from Sunningdale which directly affect handicapped children. I should like to refer to one or two. First, it was agreed that it is essential to find a way of ensuring that families with handicapped children know exactly what is available from statutory and voluntary agencies alike. This is a field in which my hon. Friend has taken a particular and sustained interest.
It was also suggested at Sunningdale that there should be more and better information from the centre. I think it was Oscar Wilde who said, returning from the first night of one of his plays, that while the play was a great success the audience was a failure. We must never overlook the importance of trying to see what we do from the standpoint of those whom we are seeking to inform and to help. Thus I regard the suggestion about improving information from the centre as one of very considerable importance. I am now considering how best to implement the suggestion.
Turning from the centre to the localities, I am glad to note that one


local authority has already appointed a disabled person to provide information about all the help and helping agencies available to the disabled. His telephone number—and nothing else—is widely advertised, for example, in doctors' waiting rooms. The precise part that anyone filling this rôle should play is still very much open for discussion. Should he be able to take up the cudgels on a disabled person's behalf, or should this be a job for others? However such questions may be settled, it is already clear that the experiment in one locality is improving take-up both of services and of cash benefits. My hon. Friend referred to the take-up of benefits. Naturally, I am keen to ensure that there is maximum take-up of all the new benefits for which we have been able to legislate.
Another question we discussed at Sunningdale was that of co-ordination between all the agencies that can help. How often do we hear of parents who are quite overwhelmed and bewildered by the complexities of the welfare "machine" and not know which way to turn? This is not in any way an indictment of the advice and help given by statutory organisations or by the voluntary sector, but simply a reflection of the highly complex range of needs of the handicapped child and his family. One of the big and intractable problems of our time is how to make the "machine" accessible and understandable to people who are in a distressing situation which is new to them. What they need is a "single door" approach to make the face even of the largest institutions seem more human. This approach can help to reduce the fears which so often afflict the parents of a handicapped child.
I am, therefore, most grateful to the National Children's Bureau for its initiative in recently establishing the Voluntary Council for Handicapped Children. One of the main aims of the new council is to provide the "single door" approach to the very wide range of help which is now available from so many different agencies. I am much impressed with the council's work so far and by the quality of its first pamphlet "Help Starts Here", which I understand will be followed by other publications. I am also very interested in the seminars and

"workshops" which the council has mounted.
The membership of the council represents a great deal of talent and expertise covering all the interests of handicapped children. I am naturally very glad to have been able to authorise payment from my Department of a grant to the council of £30,000 over the next three years. This example of voluntary organisations working together is one which might well be followed by other organisations in the voluntary sector. I commend the National Children's Bureau's initiative to them.
Another suggestion made at Sunning-dale was that much greater use should be made of the experience and expertise of parents with older handicapped children in helping new parents of children with similar handicaps. The National Deaf Children's Society has a successful scheme of this kind to provide help and advice for younger parents of deaf children. I should like to see the principle of that scheme applied much more widely in the service of handicapped children, and I shall be seeking the advice of the volunteer centre to this end. There is an increasing tendency to encourage the day foster care of handicapped children, and of children from other households under stress, within families so that in a familiar local environment the child can establish close and continuing relationships.
My Department has this year published a "Guide to Foster Care Practice", which is the report of a working party chaired by Mrs. Janie Thomas of the London School of Economics. The report specifically deals with ways of meeting the needs of handicapped children and will influence practice in this field. I should also like to refer to the new organisation, Parents for Children, which is taking a particular interest in placing for adoption children with special needs including handicapped children. This is another voluntary organisation that my Department has been able to help financially.
The most effective action which the Health Service can take in regard to mental and physical handicap is to try to prevent its occurrence wherever this is possible. In my view, there is much more scope for preventive action in improving services during pregnancy and childbirth.
My Department is keen to ensure that all health care activities that have a preventive purpose in this area are coordinated so as to provide a comprehensive service. The sole aim is to reduce the incidence of handicap. Before conception, the service would ensure rubella vaccination, the availability of family planning advice and the provision of genetic counselling for those at risk of certain inherited conditions. During pregnancy a high standard of ante-natal care is required with pre-natal diagnostic facilities where necessary.
I am especially concerned that older women should be offered tests to detect Down's Syndrome, and I am hopeful that services for the detection of neural tube defects can be expanded in the near future. It is important also that birth should take place in well-equipped hospitals where the full range of modern obstetric and paediatric techniques is available, and that there should be a prompt clinical examination of the newborn. My hon. Friend referred to the great importance of prevention. I share his viewpoint about the importance of this area. By encouraging continued development in the areas I have mentioned, we hope that over the years ahead we shall see a real decline in the numbers of children born with severe handicapping conditions.
My hon. Friend will know that all babies are examined at birth for observable abnormality, including Down's Syndrome, and that arrangements are made for any care or treatment which might be needed. There is also special surveillance of all handicapped children to make sure that everything possible is done to minimise handicap. Between six and 14 days after birth all infants are tested for phenylketonuria, a disease resulting in mental handicap, so that appropriate dietary treatment can be instigated as soon as possible.
The birth of a child with a handicap which can be immediately diagnosed must be regarded as an acute emotional and social crisis for the parents. A booklet on care of the child with spina bifida, prepared in 1973 by the Standing Medical Advisory Committee, stressed the skill which is required in counselling the parents of a child with this condition. It suggested that, if at all possible, the

mother should be allowed to see and handle the child shortly after birth, and that the father should be involved in discussions about care at an early stage.
Repeated opportunities for both parents to discuss their anxieties should be provided. Ideally one member of staff should assume particular responsibility for stimulating these discussions. The importance of repeated opportunities for such discussions, both in hospital and at home, cannot be over-emphasised. I think that this advice holds good for all types of handicap which are apparent at or soon after birth.
My hon. Friend, as the hon. Member for Isle of Ely intended to do, has referred to the need for better coordination of services for families with a handicapped child. As he will know, the Committee on the Child Health Services under the chairmanship of Professor Court is expected to report later this year and it would be wrong for me to anticipate its recommendations. Nevertheless, I can indicate what services are already provided.
The community health services for preschool children aim to identify, at the earliest possible stage, any defect or deviation from the normal requiring immediate or later treatment to prevent the development of a handicapping condition. Current advice to health authorities is that all children should be seen at a child health clinic for routine developmental screening and physical examination at specified ages during their first five years.
Developmental surveillance and specific screening tests are usually carried out by medical officers or health visitors at clinics run by area health authorities, or in the home by health visitors alone. General practitioners increasingly take part in screening programmes, either by working in child health clinics or by organizing "well baby" sessions for their own patients.
The importance of multi-disciplinary assessment for children with suspected handicap has been recognised for a number of years. It is referred to in Policy Circular HM(71)22 "Hospital Facilities for Children". Our Consultative Document on Priorities also recognises the importance of providing comprehensive assessment and follow-up services to help


handicapped children to reach their full potential.
Comprehensive assessment services encourage the participation of parents, and provide them with support and advice in the management of the child. Many of these services arrange parents' discussion groups, toy libraries and supplies of appropriate literature, and will put parents in touch with appropriate voluntary organisations.
It was the intention of the hon. Member for Isle of Ely to mention the

problem of confidentiality of information about handicapped children. The key to overcoming this problem lies in the involvement of the parents in making plans for the child.

The Question having been proposed after Ten o'clock on Thursday evening and the debate having continued for half an hour, Mr. DEPUTY SPEAKER adjourned the House without Question put, pursuant to the Standing Order.

Adjourned at nineteen minutes to Two o'clock p.m.